Red-hair was a appellation that the people of Yamato applied to all Western people, though it was among the rarest of colors even in that part of the world. The term ‘blue-eyes’ worked much the same. Whether or not it was intended as derogatory depended, as so much else in their world, on the context in which it was said. As it happened the one who stood at the head of this expedition, a thousand strong, was a woman named Hannah who fit both stereotypes. The lady knight was decked from head to toe in a dull black set of impenetrable Solsteel armor. One would have thought that the armor would be stiflingly hot in the blaze of the summer heat, but in fact it was as cool as springwater. Three other black knights, their faces hidden underneath their helms, stood behind her. Behind them, in turn, a hundred men in their finest blue dress uniforms, carrying ceremonial swords and banners with the flag of Columbian Union.
Ahead of Hannah’s party was a wall which stretched across the entirety of the pass that led into the heart of Yamato. It had been constructed a thousand years ago, or more, from pale-white granite blocks, each the size of a carriage. Hannah wondered if this people still had the power to move mountains. Before the main entrance was a moat of water, and a large wooden door which must have taken dozens of men to open. In spite of its size it was smooth with perfectly precise joints, and if laid flat it could have been used as a writing surface. It had been closed for hundreds of years. To her knowledge, it had never been breached, the wall never scaled.
They were just on the other side of the bridge across the moat, close enough to it now for a child to hit it with a pebble. She spotted movement atop the white battlements, which were lined by archers with strange lopsided bows. Shortly after that a banner unfurled from above the main gate, with two words in some Western language Hannah didn’t know.
“‘Go away.’” Hannah said. One of the knights behind her, Sara, piped up.
“So it says. I didn’t know you knew any Gallic!” Sara said.
“I know when I’m not invited.”
Hannah removed her broadsword from its scabbard. It made a sonorous hum, like a tuning fork, until she rested the point on the dry earth and placed her gauntleted hands atop the hilt. It was a dull black just like her armor.
“Do you think we’ll have to destroy it?” Sara said.
“They’ll open it.” Hannah said. “If they can remember how.”
“Why?”
“Because they know what happened to Celes. They know we have the power to destroy it, but as long as it stands they can pretend their divine barrier still works. They think only of appearances. Deception is a way of life for these heathens.”
“I read that they have a million gods.” Sara said.
“Imagine how long the masses are, with that many to venerate.” came another voice behind her.
“Quiet, everyone. A million falsehoods is nothing against one truth.”
Hannah noticed up on the battlements the archers were nocking arrows, then bringing them to a full draw. She raised her hand as a signal to those behind her: hold your ground. Some time passed and the archers, all at once, slackened their draw and put the longbows in a resting position in front of them. Hannah and her party waited, there, in silence like boulders, for two hours. Finally she heard the groan of the composite-wood slab of the door being lifted. It revealed a small party of men, the one in front wearing vibrant robes of fine silk. At his back was a squad of their legendary warriors, the samurai. Their wooden armor was reinforced only sporadically with iron plates and struck Hannah as being just for show. If they thought otherwise, she was certainly prepared to correct them.
Following the straw warriors were a set of almost scandalously naked laborers, wearing what were essentially loincloths, dragging a few wheeled carts loaded down with supplies.
“Greetings, travelers of the grass sea.” the silk-robed man began, in Dutch. “My name is Aoyama. I have brought gifts of water, wood, and food so that you may be swiftly on your way to your destination.”
“Your gifts are greatly appreciated. I am Hannah, a knight in service of the Union of Columbia, across the Pacific. I am carrying a letter from the leader of our country addressed to your Shogun.” Hannah said. The silk-robed man responded immediately, with a smile.
“Excellent. I will be glad to take it, and will make sure it reaches him.” he said.
“My orders are to deliver it in person. My country would consider anything less a great insult, and I would be forced to return in disgrace.” Hannah responded. Aoyama looked back at her with a calm smile.
“That will be impossible. Meaning no disrespect to your great country and its august people, no one but the people of Yamato may tread upon the ground beyond the gate. What you ask is against the laws of our land.” he said. “If you were to proceed to Nagasaki, we have set aside a place there to conduct official business. Our high envoys are all there and would be more than happy to receive your letter.”
“We will not be going south. My mission is here, and I intend to accomplish it whatever the cost.”
“We may locate a suitable official and he could come to your camp to receive the letter. It would take three weeks to bring such a man up from Nagasaki, if that is acceptable to you.” Aoyama said.
“We will be,” Hannah said, pausing for effect, “Going through this gate, all the way to Edo if we must, in three days, whether it be open or closed at that time.”
“I see. The matters you have raised will require great deliberation. If you would be willing to wait a week, we could assemble a response.”
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“Three days. As it happens, I have a gift for your people as well. I have brought many others, but this one I feel obliged to give you now.” Hannah said, and snapped her fingers. Aoyama raised his delicate, plucked eyebrows. One of the ceremonial guardsman brought up a wooden box and opened the lid. Inside it was a pair of white cotton flags, folded up into triangles. Hannah picked one of them out and unfolded it before Aoyama, who was waiting pensively.
“This is a white flag. In our lands, waving a white flag in battle signifies that you are ready to surrender.” Hannah said. Two more guardsmen approached and she handed it off to them. They folded it back into a triangle, then placed it in the box next to its sister. Hannah leaned forward slightly, looking down at Aoyama, who she towered over. “Just so you are aware.”
The guard stepped forward and presented the box to the robed bureaucrat. Aoyama took it and smiled as though it was the finest of lacquerware.
“You are very generous, my lady. I will see that your message is delivered.”
Aoyama bowed deeply and shuffled away. The samurai and the laborers disappeared as well in his wake, although one of the warriors risked a fierce glance in her direction. She tapped her finger against the hilt of her sword.
“One honest man among fifty, I see.” Hannah said, glancing after the retreating back of the one who had openly showed his displeasure. He was much too far away to hear, but still she spoke to him: “When your soul is saved from hell, you’ll be thanking me.”
Sara risked a sly glance towards Princeton.
—
Three days hence, the panic in Kanagawa had died down. Most of those who wished to evacuate had done so, and in their place was a horde of menacing swordsmen from every corner of the earth. There were few children left in the town, which was closest the outer wall. This handful included Kagami, Amagi, and their two brothers. They had located an oak tree with study limbs that had a good view of the courtyard in front of the divine gate. Thousands of samurai were lined up in two ranks on either side. Laborers were running around sowing water to keep the dust down in the courtyard. A pavilion had been set up in a park where the stream running through Kanagawa parted.
“Cooler today, isn’t it?” Akagi said. It wasn’t!
“Has everyone lost their minds?” Kagami said.
“Are you alright, Kagami?” he asked.
“What is this, what are they doing? Setting up to receive a bunch of barbarians, through the divine gate?” she said.
“Don’t worry, sister.” Tosa called out. He was on the other side of the trunk of the tree, so she had to lean forward to see him. “It’s just a ruse. Once half are through we will slam the gate shut and set upon them. The rest will flee.”
He seemed confident enough of that.
“But,” Kagami said, still agitated, “Why should they be allowed to take even one step through the gate?”
Tosa smiled reassuringly: “Sister, it isn’t prohibited for a foreigner to step through the gate. Only that he, having done so, be allowed to remain alive.”
“Ohhh.” Kagami said. “Of course, brother. They’ll be punished.”
Akagi and Amagi remained silent throughout. Kagami turned to Akagi, who was next to her and looked like he might have something to say. Hopefully it wasn’t about the weather.
“Your father is down there. Do you want him to have to fight one of those black knights?” he said. Kagami was briefly offended at how he twisted around her desires like that. Her inner conflict must have played out on her face, since Akagi’s expression melted into concern.
“No, but.” Kagami said, “He’s not alone down there. There’s many others.”
Surely her father had been canny enough to arm himself somehow. The town was awash in blades. He could have claimed his was stolen, or carried away by mistake in the evacuation. There were so many ways.
“We’d be able to defeat them with these numbers.” Akagi granted. He didn’t sound all too convinced, to Kagami’s ear. He must have realized he’d worried her and was trying to walk it back. That worried her more than if he’d stuck on the point. He really did think they would lose.
“An easy victory.” Tosa sniffed from the other side of the trunk. “Fighting is about spirit, not weapons.”
“Why do samurai even have swords then.” Kagami said, “They’d just use their fists and their spirit, right brother?”
She was not party to Tosa’s red-faced blush, but the ensuing awkward silence was enough to inform her that she would be a long time making it up to him.
“What would a girl know.” he said at last. Under normal circumstances, they might both have pouted over the exchange for weeks.
“You know, I heard,” Akagi said, “Three of the black knights are women.”
It was Tosa this time who leaned forward. His eyes met briefly with Kagami, who turned her head away.
“Are barbarian women as strong as men?” he said.
“It has something to do with Sol. It makes them stronger. That’s why the black knights are so dangerous. It’s not just that their armor is made of Solsteel or that their swords are. They’ve been poisoned with it. It would be hard to kill one even if she weren’t armored.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the distant groan of the gate opening. All four of them leaned forward, nearly to the edge of their branches. The gate opened and a pair of bannermen marched forward carrying the the flag of their distant land. It was a confused jumble of stripes and stars which Kagami took an immediate dislike to. Following the banners were a bunch of musicians carrying strange portable instruments. They were playing a bombastic tune which carried well over to their distant tree. Kagami felt her stomach turn at how ridiculous they were behaving as they went through the divine gate. It could only be a calculated insult.
After the band were the four black knights, like conquerers, each riding a horse with full barding. Their dull armor didn’t glint in the sun. The one in front, riding an equally dark stallion, was pale skinned with long, shining copper hair. Kagami waited and waited for the moment the gate would shut behind them and they would be put to the sword, but it never came. One by one the knights filed over to the reception tent and disappeared inside.
Kagami and Tosa, forgetting their quarrel entirely, each conspired to push back their moment of reckoning again and again until at last, hours later, they disappeared unmolested through the same gate they had entered. Kagami felt deflated. The impenetrable gate, such a fixture of her childhood, was just a bundle of sticks. The same was true of all the swords carried by the oh-so-vaunted samurai. They might not have had material, which was forgivable, but they lacked spirit as well, which was not.
Though Hannah and her band would go to a hero’s welcome in the West, the same earth they set foot on would soon be blackened by blood and fire. Many would go mad, many to their graves. The Shogun would never forgiven for letting the barbarians go through the gate, by the people or the gods, and he would pay for that error with his life. Her father, loyal in his service, would join him in his fate.