This wasn’t the first time Tara found herself and Yohari standing outside the Hebi estate. Still, it was a rare occurrence. Most of the time they were forbidden from going anywhere near it. Nobles never desired their company anyway, so the townspeople of Kun never saw a point in venturing where they weren’t welcome. The last time she had been so close, between five guards with their eyes suspiciously on her back as they walked towards the entrance, she’d been less than ten years of age. She’d grown accustomed to looking upon it daily, curious.
The keep was ominous and looming with a certain sense of decay, even as it neared completion. The newcomer, the strange man who called himself Noboru, kept ahead of them. He wouldn’t offer his clan name, and so Tara figured ‘old man’ would do.
Tara reached and grabbed Yohari’s hand. “Listen, I’m sorry about putting us through that earlier. I mean it.”
Yohari gave her usual smile. “It’s fine, I wouldn’t have had the willpower to hurt an animal. I definitely couldn’t have stood still knowing you were in danger either.”
Tara returned a teasing look. “Oh, like I did for you? Are you suggesting I don’t care?”
Yohari laughed. “You could do without me. You still have your father to look after.”
Tara looked down, avoiding contact with a guard. “I couldn’t.”
Not a sound around them, except for their light footsteps up the entrance. The doors creaked uncomfortably loud as two Jodai swung them open, permitting them entrance. Tara felt a sinking ooze in the pit of her stomach.
The tower was so far above their heads now that it seemed to lean when they looked up at it. It was twice as tall as the Ash trees around it. Of course, it could have just been her nerves that caused her vision to sway.
The soldiers held begrudging looks as they passed into the keep. Tara didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she inhaled sharply through her nose. The main room was lavish compared to her and her father’s own house, with accommodations of luxury she had only ever dreamed of. Woven interlocking floor mats so clean she wondered how anyone could live here. There was burning incense, offering their aromas to the elegant paintings brushed across the walls and rice paper doors. Decorative paper lamps of blue and green with the characters for ‘peace’ and ‘clan’ hung from the ceiling. At the center, on a cushioned stool of mahogany, sat Lord Hebi with his lady beside him. They kept their faces composed, and Tara felt the weight of their gaze instantly. Her shoulders sunk as she heard the creak of the door behind them closing shut.
Off to the side, a man with a grayed goatee and short hair, which looked recently cut. Crudely so. He had two blades at his waist.
Tara was tempted to take a glance at Yohari who stood on the other side of their new acquaintance, but she didn’t dare remove her concentration from Lord Hebi. She could hardly grasp the fact that she stood before him, in the flesh. Charcoal hair tied up in a bun, a dispassionate face and a prominent mustache. This was the man who had pried the previous High Lord right from his long-held position, taking rule from a clan who had held its grip on their province for over four decades. Now Tara finally stood in front of him.
For a minute, there was only silence. Tara and Yohari hurried to bow when they saw Old Man Noboru doing the same. Intense heat and redness flushed through Tara’s system.
“Who are these girls?” Lord Hebi asked. His voice resonated clearly through the wide room.
“My newest pupils, Lord Owa,” Noboru replied. Tara peeked at him, and saw him smiling. “They’re clearly of common origin, but I assure you, they are worth their salt.”
Tara took a glance at Lord Hebi. There was a coolness in his eyes as he examined them, not the cruelty she expected, but a calm, collected energy that radiated through him. His wife was the same, with strong angular features. She hung closely to him, in bright blue robes and hair that ran down to the small of her back.
“What are your names?”
Tara swallowed, her throat suddenly dried. She looked to Yohari, who stared back at her.
“Must you consult each other to answer a question as simple as that?” There was no anger in Lord Hebi’s words, but his voice was a bludgeon to Tara’s confidence.
“Sanabaji Tara, my lord,” Tara answered quickly. Yohari’s answer came so quiet that she was sure Lord Hebi would ask for it again, and in that moment she feared for her.
“I see. Are you aware of your purpose for being here?”
Tara didn’t know if she should answer, and for a split second considered staying silent. “N-no, my lord.”
“I wanted them to figure it out themselves as part of their new training,” Noboru said, “so you’re welcome to explain it in riddles, my lord.”
Lord Hebi grabbed his wife’s hand which rested on his shoulder. “General Yun, you may stay. Hutani, go and retrieve the carriage.”
Lady Hebi nodded once firmly, then moved to follow orders. Tara heard those creaking doors open and close for the second time, and then it was just the five of them.
“As you know, River province falls completely under me and my clan’s authority. The course of River is completely within my discretion. I have made painstaking efforts in refining the land Takasa Arusuke governed for so long. The truth is that he was quite a decent leader, though he lacked the long term mentality in maintaining willful subservience. When made hungry enough, even the most loyal dog will steal food from the master’s table.
“But I digress. As for now, it is too early to take full vengeance on my enemies. Bar Takasa Arusuke, it is safe to say the rest of the Takasa clan still lives. Their deaths will come when one needs to be made an example for any other clans that begin to question my authority, though I don’t intend for that occasion to arise. For now, I keep them imprisoned, all except for one. That one is Takasa Shozhu.”
He paused, watching them intently. Tara tried her best to follow along. She hoped he would not actually explain the rest of the story in riddles.
He pulled from under his robe a piece of parchment, unrolling it and spreading it out before them. It was a detailed drawing of a man, a rather fat man with a neat beard combed to the chest.
“I believe I’ve had the displeasure of meeting him in times past, my lord.” Old Man Noboru scratched his chin. “I’ve an excellent memory, and one doesn’t forget someone so distasteful so easily.”
Lord Hebi continued. “On the night of the coup, we made an attempt to capture Shozhu first and the rest of his clan second. We meant to capture Arusuke’s Ginju last, though we were unsure exactly who among them were the Ginju. We now know them to be Takasa Irashida, Takasa Koji, and Takasa Aiya, three of Arusuke’s offspring.”
Offspring? Surely Lord Hebi was not saying that the Ginju were the same as human beings.
“At this point, their capture is not possible. During our attempt to capture Shozhu, he put up more of a fight than we anticipated. It turns out that this man also possesses the ability of a Ginju, though he is rather weak and old and moves with a prominent limp. He indeed struggled against the twenty Jodai that rushed him outside of the Year-End’s gathering. Ultimately he was able to escape. We were able to locate the rest of the family within an hour, though Shozhu had disappeared. According to various sources, he was last seen in a far eastern village of River. At least, the description matches. We believe he is headed for refuge in Stone province.”
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Tara was taken aback. If she heard him right, he had just explained to them that a Ginju was on the run. The thought was enough to make her rigid and cold.
“With all due respect, it is a nice story, my lord,” Noboru said, breaking Owa’s judicious pause. “But I fear my pupils may still fail to see the point.”
The man off to the side moved over to them, standing above Noboru. Tara guessed he was the one named General Yun, a man who evidently possessed authority over thousands of Jodai soldiers by his title alone. Without hesitation, he raised a hand and smacked a fist across the top of Noboru’s head.
“Ah!” Noboru grabbed his head to cover it, and Yun barked for him to be silent.
“That’s enough from you.”
Lord Hebi was unfazed. “Listen carefully, Noboru, Tara, Yohari. This is your mission: you are to embark on a journey to Stone province tomorrow, as soon as the sun rises on Second Day. Find and retrieve Takasa Shozhu.”
*****
The afternoon drew into night far quicker than Tara had hoped.
The anxiousness that had settled into every inch of her body became more suffocating, and yet coupled with it was excitement. At any given moment, she felt overwhelmed by one of the two. Here, in the blink of an eye, Tara had been given everything she wanted. An adventure and a path to becoming an Ushin. It seemed to have fallen right into her lap. Yet, she wondered just what she had gotten herself into, knowing they were on the hunt for a runaway Ginju, and would be going further from her town than Tara had ever been. She thought back to the night she and Yohari had seen those malevolent black shapes, hissing through the fields like hurricanes. She couldn’t back out now.
Old Man Noboru led them out the keep to the carriage that the Hebi lord’s wife had prepared for them. He took them straight to Kawanura, Yohari filling the empty space between them with so many frantic questions that Tara worried she might see him snap for the first time. She did her best to calm Yohari down as the rice fields receded from view.
Kawanura was huge, and the surrounding walls added much to its grandiosity. It was the capital city after all, though Tara had not had enough chances to visit it during her life, despite the relative closeness. She was eased a bit to again come across the streets that always overflowed, though compared to a town like Kun, any place was overflowing. Roads led this way and that in a way that seemed maze-like, and nestled at the capital’s center was the newly acquired Hebi estate, majestically watching over the city.
They stopped at Jedo inn, and Tara almost gawked when Noboru informed them they’d be staying there for the night. Inside were replicas of nature, tiny trees scattered about the hardwood floors, with a makeshift pond to the left of the entrance. Noboru, Tara and Yohari passed noblemen and noblewomen as Noboru booked two rooms with the receptionist. Tara did her best to avoid the dirty looks thrown her way. There was not a single commoner besides them in this place.
“I’ll have to get you two new clothes,” Noboru commented as they made their way up the steps to the far right end of a hall. Compared to the surrounding nobility, Tara and Yohari’s robes were worn and drab, lacking the luster and flaring designs of more expensive attire. He inspected his robes, which were only a little scuffed from his previous tussle. “I’m just glad I didn’t get any blood on this.”
They stayed in separate rooms, the old man a room across from them. Yohari pried open their screen door as Tara looked back and caught a few nobles eyeing them from afar. They were being followed, and their stalkers didn’t look entirely friendly.
Once they got in, they shut the screen behind them as swiftly as they could. Tara hardly had time to appreciate the spaciousness of it, the large floor mat that was three times thicker than the frayed, rugged mats she was used to, the softness of it, nor the lively plants placed at the corners of the room.
Yohari did her best not to show it, but she was ten times as shaken as Tara.
“You can back out if you need to, you know,” Tara told her. The two sat next to each other, Tara turned to face her lover. Former lover? Even she didn’t know.
“Don’t tempt me like that,” Yohari said. “You think I want to run back out there?”
Tara let quiet come between them. Finally, Yohari turned to face her. “I’ll help you wherever I can, Tara-shen. I’ll go wherever you go. I want to see you alive and happy, but I also want to find a way to support my family. The thing is, I trust you, so staying by your side is a way to ensure both.”
Tara could see the resolve in Yohari’s eyes, but that only made her more guilty. The fact of the matter was, she herself was beginning to have major doubts. She never imagined they’d be taking this journey so fast.
She remembered the prowess of Old Man Noboru, his short-lived fight with the Jodai next to the Hebi keep. If I had that, I could protect so many. I could earn much more. Once I returned to Kun, Yohari’s family would never worry again…neither would father.
The fleeting thought that baths tonight would not be an option passed through Tara’s mind. They didn’t risk making it all the way to the bath house, only to Old Man Nobru’s room across from them. Thankfully, there was no one in the halls.
“Give it to us straight, Noboru,” Tara demanded. “Who exactly are you? Why did Lord Hebi want to speak to you specifically?”
Noboru grinned. “Oh, ho, you could probably figure the second part out from my situation with those Jodai earlier. As for the first, I suppose we can begin disclosing our personal information.” He crossed his arms and legs in a mischievous manner. “If I must tell you, I will tell it to you like this. I was once an Erru of common origin, like yourselves. Though I suppose I still am. Now I own a dojo to my name in southern River. I am a well respected former Ushin that even Jodai fear. Since I developed the Double-Hand Sword technique, I’ve not lost a single fight.”
“You’re of common blood?” said Yohari, amazed.
“Are you telling the truth?” Tara asked.
“I should smack you across the head as Yun did me for that. A pupil never questions her master!”
And with that, he banished them back to their rooms.
However, not before stopping them in the hall. Noboru placed a hand on the pair of shoulders and looked over them.
“I must admit, I’ve always dreamed of this master and pupil scenario. In case you still hold any doubts, I intend to teach you everything I know. You must be dedicated. If I suspect you are not fully on board, I won’t hesitate to let you go.”
Tara nodded. Her resolve was filling back up, boiling inside her.
“We leave early tomorrow morning. I would take this opportunity to say your final goodbyes. Have the carriage driver guide you back to Kun, but be quick. If I have to leave without you, I will.”
Noboru returned to his room to sleep. Yohari slid open the screen door of their own room. “I can’t do it. If I go with you, I won’t come back.”
Tara understood perfectly. For herself, she had no option.
The carriage driver was in his own room at the other end of the hall. Tara tiptoed through it, praying she wouldn’t run into any others inside the inn. She rapped softly at his screen door, seeing his silhouette rise, shadow cast through the translucent screen by lantern. He did his best not to show disdain for her request. She did her best not to feel shame.
The carriage was left in the same spot outside the inn. It was such a luxury that Tara figured she and Yohari just might relish in their journey to Stone. Neither of them knew a single commoner who had ever rode in a carriage.
The sky had completely blackened over. Tara watched the rolling road under the moon and stars, thinking to herself. She had the carriage driver stop a few hundred paces before the town, just when the Hebi keep came into view. She didn’t want to draw any attention, should any townsfolk still be awake, out and about. She knew none would be.
She made her way through fields of grass. It was dark. The moon and stars were barely a guidance. Only the torches flickering around the keep, the nightwatch. She kept being reminded of the Ginju she had seen that night. She ignored the thoughts, moving forward.
Tara finally reached the outskirts of town. She toed her way around them until she was behind her father’s house. There was no wind, no chirping crickets, no humming cicadas, not even a mouse. Tara crept to the door and placed her ear against it. Nothing.
He could be looking for her. She couldn’t tell him she was going, or he’d do everything in his power to stop her. Once the fuss got big enough and he took up her whereabouts with Lord Hebi, the River lord would explain to the townsfolk where she’d gone. Her father might be distraught, but she would make it back to him.
She heard something. It was faint, low and grumbling. She could barely make it out. Suddenly, it registered in her mind.
Her father was snoring.
That was enough.
She smiled to herself, ear still pressed firmly against the wood. “Thank you for all you’ve done,” she whispered.
Quietly, Tara retreated from her home, and pressed on toward the carriage still waiting for her, ready to embark towards Stone.