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War of Windchime by Hane Shinohara
War of Windchime It was raining again. Infernal weather. He skated the edge of the muddy street, gamely struggling to keep his footing between rain filled potholes large enough to drown a cow and the shallow river of brown water slowly but steadily washing the road away. Avoiding puddles was more like playing hopscotch from one patch of relatively high ground to the next. The Lord only knew why he bothered, secure as he was in the resigned knowledge that his boots would probably get soaked through soon enough anyway. Perhaps it was simple pragmatism to make the effort. After all, it wasn’t a mere matter of buying another pair when the leather on these rotted from too much mud and or frayed from hard travel, because he liked these boots. The heels gave him height nature had disinclined to, the precocious bitch, and despite what one would guess, were quite comfortable. Maybe they’d been more comfortable when crossing the civilized cobblestones of London, or the sunbaked pavement of Italian avenues in Rome, but really, nothing of his old world could truly be described as ‘comfortable’ and ‘well suited’ in the midst of this new one. So ‘familiar’ alone would have to do in the face of culture shock. So he would be sorry when these failed him, as one set of robes had already (slashed to irreparable ribbons by youkai, the inconsiderate beasts). He’d been lucky to save his hat from a similar fate, given the aim of those claws. Youkai always went after the hat. He didn’t understand it. It was like bulls and red flags, minus the roaring heat of Espana’s coliseums and plus all the associated bloodshed. He reached the front deck of the inn and stepped up with a grateful exhalation, glad to be out of the deluge. There was just too much sky in this country. It made the color blue into something like gravity, all encompassing, poised to flatten one against the planet surface like a bug. It made the sunlight hotter, the days more exhausting, and the storms when they came fiercer somehow, although in precisely what way he couldn’t say. He snuck a quick look around to make sure no one was around to see before vigorously shaking himself like a wet cat. It didn’t help much. Too much water had already soaked in. He was going to leave a puddle if he stood in one place for too long. Easily dealt with, by not staying in one place. He bypassed the raucous commons area (at least that didn’t change from country to country, he didn’t think he’d be able to cope with a land where the bars were quiet and the patrons decorous, because that was Just Wrong and Unnatural, really) and slipped upstairs, heading unhurriedly for the room he’d rented with a large deposit to insure privacy and proceeded to turn into his personal little sanctuary fortress here in town, mostly by placing Gato inside it and telling the shikigami to stay there. Said shikigami was occupied with the cleaning of the heavy twin revolvers when he entered, not bothering to look up at the sound of the door opening. Gato didn’t need to. Gato probably had been aware of Hazel’s approach when the priest had still been on the street outside and plus, only one person dared casually enter a space occupied by so dangerous a being as the dark skinned man. Hazel swept off his hat and laid it aside, wanting a towel for his wet hair and of course unable to find one. After several minutes of silent, futile searching, he settled instead for tying the mess back as best he could so it would stop dripping down his neck. His silver hair really wasn’t long enough for a proper tail, but with some finagling he managed a passable imitation. The sodden vestments came off next, leaving him in simple black long sleeved tunic and riding breeches. The latter were a useless affectation, none of the scrub brush ponies they’d seen displayed for sale since arriving here seemed worth the extra care and feeding when Hazel, no towering giant, probably would have had his feet dragging on either side when mounted. And Gato would certainly need something close to a destrier, or at least one of the massive tawny coldbloods the peasants of his homeland were so fond of, taking into account the shikigami’s ridiculous height and solid frame. No, given the lack of Spanish quality in the local equine bloodlines, they were stuck touring China on foot and probably better off for it. Riding or packbeasts alike were yummy walking targets for youkai, and no way in Hell was Hazel trusting one not to bolt with their supplies the first few seconds into a situation with gunfire and rampaging youkai or bandits or whatever. Which, unfortunately, tended to occur with regular frequency. He wondered briefly just how Sanzo had gotten that oh so very useful Iron vehicle thing of his. Inscrutable youkai magic, he supposed, since the white reptile it transformed into seemed to belong to the quiet one, the one with the empty smile and flat, jade hard eyes Hazel believed to be the most dangerous out of all of them. To his mind the halfbreed was just a pathetic waste of life, since he’d obviously thrown his lot in with the demon side of his heritage and made no attempt to reject it for the salvation humanity offered. Perhaps it couldn’t be helped. Perhaps demon parentage was responsible for an inherent degredation and corruption of spirit. And the energetic short one with the disturbingly impressive limiter reminded Hazel of nothing so much as a wolf puppy, all snapping jaws and wide, flashing eyes. A pet until it came of age and into its true, monstrous nature, but an animal in either case, unpredictable but not uncontrollable, and easily defeated through logical tactics. It was the creature called Hakkai that the Christian priest was most wary of, because of the demon trio that accompanied Sanzo, the unassuming brunette was the one pretending hardest to be human. That, and Sanzo seemed to carry on the most civil conversations with Hakkai, when the monk bothered to address his companions in civil fashion at all. Hazel knew himself well enough to admit that he found Hakkai threatening not only because of the youkai’s unknown ability, but also because of his apparent license to Sanzo, a license the other two did not seem to share. Hazel had Plans for Sanzo. Hakkai seemed most in position to thwart them. But that was neither here nor there. He had better things to do than obsess over what he could not change at the moment. Hazel left his shadow to the solitary, meticulous process of artillery upkeep, remaining further only to lay out his rain soaked garments to dry and then grab a cloth wrapped bundle from the corner. Gato did glance up then, at the sound of steel rasping quietly against steel, but offered no comment. What Hazel did in his spare time was Hazel’s business. And what Hazel did in his spare time, when not brooding or praying or mentally hissing at Hakkai like a jealous girlfriend (Hazel called it strategy, to think upon the weaknesses and strengths of one’s opponents, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit to himself that he even knew the meaning of the word jealousy, much less consciously recognize it as the motivation behind his actions), was seek isolated spaces with enough length and breadth to move in, as he was doing now. He found what he was looking for in a large, empty room that opened to the garden out back, probably a place where in nicer weather the wealthier patrons might take their meals in view of artfully arranged greenery, or some other crap like that. All he cared was that it was spacious, empty, and likely to stay that way. The door whispered shut behind him. He stood, letting blue eyes adjust to the muted gray light that was sun filtered through massive cloudcover and downpour. The rain hissed quietly overhead and out in the garden. This would do fine, he decided. Deft fingers undid knots and unwrapped cords, letting coarse fabric fall away from shining silver. He eyed her length critically, searching as always for any minute injury, any change or discrepancy from the perfection he expected, and to his mingled satisfaction and relief met with none. She was still as flawlessly beautiful as on the day he had been gifted with her. Hazel wore no belt or sheath for her, not for this, letting her wait patiently in his gloved right hand while her sister was removed from the vicinity of his gauntlet, as always strapped flat to the left forearm and hidden under the sleeve. The dirk was needle pointed, kept meticulously sharpened, and Hazel was careful when he laid the weapon aside, but not nearly so reverentially careful as he was with the sword in bearing her to the center of the room. The dagger he kept for defense, for a quick stab to the eye or stomach, for last ditch efforts and for killing. The magnificent rapier he kept for this ritual alone. He saluted the empty air, and swept her up into guard, taking the position drilled into his brain by many lessons (and many beatings) under the Venetian. The old man had a name, he supposed, but few remembered or appeared desirous of divulging it casually, and none of the eager, young, aristocrat students (of whom had comprised Hazel’s peers in training) cared much for inquiry. Their interest in the Venetian was singular: to learn the art of swordplay from the hand of a master. And then to show off by using it to beat up their petty court enemies and impress girls, or something similarly worthless. Hazel wanted instruction from the Venetian for a different reason. While sponsored, educated, and trained by the church he was technically a member of elite society, but he had not been born into it, and as a result he was not privy to all the long ingrained habits, privileges, and skills that a young man of similar age, a rich young man of similar age, was already intimately familiar with. Most sons of the upper classes had been tutored by personal swordmasters since the age they were first deemed able to hold a weapon without accidentally poking their own eyes out with it. Hazel, born and raised a poor orphan, knew nothing of ‘proper background skills’ and took it upon himself to acquire the ones he thought might serve him best. Better late than never, as the saying went. And while he never seriously believed that a few lessons spent learning to wave around a piece of metal would really earn him the respect proper of the rest of world’s landed gentry, it helped soothe his troubled mind over dealing with them and fitting in with their spoiled brats. If he could prove himself every bit as good as the nobility at their own admittedly silly games, who was to say he might not eventually come to be considered one of their own, especially to the younger members who had no idea of his background? It had not, he thought distantly, been an entirely wasted effort. Was he not now the head of a bishopric, respected by his fellows, adored by his followers, and his abilities and chosen crusade looked on with approval by Rome herself? Had he not overcome the unerasable stigma of low birth, the pain of losing a beloved mentor, the estrangement from normal people of the pendant and of going through life bound to Gato and Gato to him as his eternal shadow, unwilling or otherwise? He had fought for every inch of his present status. Not one turn of phrase, not one courtesy, not one cultured habit or affection or even stray thought was not the product of a long, difficult struggle, of years spent trying to mold himself into the image of what he wanted to become, instead of what he’d been born as. The Venetian seemed to know all of it with one look, when he’d first sized up a scrawny silver haired boychild trying to ignore the smirks of the surrounding, well-dressed heirs and second sons with their fancy blades even for practice and their arrogant ‘I’ve been doing this since I was six years old’ attitudes. The old man shoved his scarred face right into Hazel’s, nodding when the action prompted no flinch, and announced the boy ‘useless, but with potential to be beaten out of his thick skull.’ Beaten it they had, and repeatedly. Gato didn’t like the blood and bruises but understood the idea of needing to prove one’s own worth. There were rites like this in his land, he told Hazel, where boys where recreated into men and men in turn recreated into warriors. If Hazel felt that going through this would help him in some way, then Gato would offer no argument. The Venetian was very fond of Hazel. Fond enough to work him faster and harder than any of the other boys, and punish him with greater harshness when he failed. It was a very discouraging sort of fondness. Morelike the sadistic amusement one gets by stalling the process of an ant trying very hard to get somewhere by smacking down a hand or a foot or, in Hazel’s case, a nice wooden cane. The others were intelligent enough to keep their mouths shut about favoritism, because looking at all the pain it seemed to involve, favoritism with the Venetian just plain sucked balls. But when Hazel wanted something enough he usually got it, and he wanted very badly to have the Venetian not proven wrong about his assumption of potential. So he endured. And learned. And progressed. And, out of all the first sons and fabulously wealthy brats, it had been Hazel alone who the Venetian had gifted with a sword of finest caliber, the one he wielded now. ‘A man of God but not a man of peace,’ the old man had said when Hazel mentioned his ambition of someday embarking on crusade. Hazel had tried to explain that crusade no longer meant Crusade, it was missionary work now rather than the winning of empires, but the Venetian had merely shaken his grizzled head and gone stomping off, muttering to himself while Hazel stood there looking surprised, and returned momentarily with the most beautiful blade the young priest had ever seen. She was the color of moonlight, tapered, slender, graceful as the curve of a swan’s neck. Her guard was intricate silver, her hilt wrapped black, and her edge the cut of a surgeon’s scalpel. La Mariposa, the Butterfly, the last sword the Venetian had designed and created before he left the forge and fire and made it his fulltime business to teach brainless young popinjays how to puncture each other with expensive sharp pointy objects their fathers bought them that were really no better than glorified knitting needles. She was no knitting needle. She was a work of art, and even Gato, whose interest in blades extended only to the wickedly curved hunting knife he’d once used to skin large animals, had to admit that ‘it was a very pretty stick.’ Hazel had been very glad the Venetian hadn’t been around to hear the remark, despite the obvious entertainment value that the resulting duel between the two of them might have offered. ‘This sword is a goddess, boy,’ the Venetian had said instead, glaring at him fiercely. ‘You treat her as such, because I’m too old to be looking after her properly. She needs someone to complement her, someone who can match her, but I guess I’ll give her to you instead.’ Hazel had been smiling, not the fake, polite smile he put on for the public’s benefit, but a real expression of delight and incredulous honor, and he remembered being surprised at how different the two felt when one was using the same basic muscles. But the old man had offered her with a warning, because like all things, perfection wasn’t. The Butterfly was not, repeat not, to ever touch the blood of living flesh. She must not cut, she must not slice, she must not stab, she must NOT kill. Though shaped as an instrument of war, her purpose was not to inflict pain on living creatures. The young man he’d been hadn’t understood. Why make a sword, a weapon, if one was not allowed to use it as such? ‘She was born to exist,’ the Venetian said matter of factly, unruffled by Hazel’s confusion. ‘Not to bend to someone else’s preconceived notion of what she should be or should do. She is, and that’s all.’ He thought he knew better, now, about what the old man meant. At the time, nevertheless, he’d promised earnestly to never misuse her. The Venetian clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him (the man was deceptively strong for being so old, Hazel privately thought that he might be able to give even Gato a run for his money in an arm wresting contest) and ordered Hazel to get the hell out before he changed his mind about giving La Mariposa away. Leaving the priest to figure out just what he was supposed to do with a sword that could not kill. Gato had shrugged. “Dance with her.” Gato called the practice moves ‘dancing,’ and Hazel supposed there was a simple truth in that. One practiced against an invisible opponent, matching their motions, and there was timing and rhythm and complex footwork involved, and it wasn’t so strange to think of the whole thing as a choreographed routine. So Hazel learned to dance with La Mariposa, practicing the lethal cuts, the spins, the timing, the parries and the ripostes he would never use against a live opponent. It didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t need to fight, really, for one he was a priest and two, Gato; so the repetition of technique became as aesthetic as a performer’s warm up rather than an exercise in combat, and that suited him (and her) just fine. Exhibition, even for an audience of one, was La Mariposa’s stage and intended spotlight. Despite all his years of bearing her Hazel himself was still not immune to her promised charms, because she was beautiful in simply being, but celestial in his hands when he swept her to dance. It was an old ritual for him now. One that never failed to make him regret leaving Italy, or Spain, or France, or any of the other places where he’d seen the dances of other masters and known, with the Butterfly, that he could have beaten them at their own game. But that was not her purpose, nor his. ‘She is, and that’s all.’ Tap. Tap. Tap. He let his bootheel test out the rhythm, lightly on the wooden floor. Tap. Tap. Tap. The arch of one’s arm is the key. Bring it up slowly. Hold it there above your head. Tap. Tap. Tap. Raise your eyes to the man who isn’t there. He is the shadow dancer, both partner and foe. He exists only in your mind. Tap. Tap. Tap. Greet his blade gently. Harder. Smile for him, as you know he smiles for you. His sword matches yours, Butterfly to Butterfly. Press him and feel him press back. Tap. Tap. Tap. Strike! Parry, spin, cross this foot over that one in the old pattern. Step lightly now, he circles you. He feints, he sidepasses, he ducks to get in under your guard. Tap. Tap. Tap. Feel her ring in your hands from the impact that isn’t there. Feel her twist to chase him and his weapon away. She is jealous of the attention his sword wishes to pay to your vulnerable flesh. Move high. To the side. Step back. Lunge in, feel him give ground. Tap. Tap. Tap. Strike! Again! He gives to you. He attacks! Spin to meet him, turn your head to keep your eyes on him. Curve your back, bring her sweeping in. Duck under his stab and catch him, hilt to hilt. If he were real, you would be able to feel the heat of his skin. Tap. Tap. Tap. Break away. Turn. Step. Lunge, turn, step, feint. Parry, thrust, step. Faster. He knows what you are doing. Step step lunge, sweep. Stab! Block low, step, whirl. Faster. Again. Ignore the way his breathing speeds up. He doesn’t exist. It is your own pulse that races. Tap. Tap. Tap. Speed makes her sing. Faster. Stepturn, forwardfeintbackstrike! Slide against his blade. He knows what you are doing and he cannot stop you. This is the correct pattern, but faster. Again. And again. Tap. Tap. Tap. Again and again and again. It was easy to lose himself in this. He enjoyed the knife edge of control and spinning chaos, enjoyed his Butterfly’s deadly song in flight knowing she would never need to sing it over a real corpse. In order to duel properly one must not hate an opponent or seek to cut him down, but to appreciate his challenge and reflect it with due decorum. La Mariposa performed only for the perfection of being. The shadow dancer he partnered with performed only to make him, Hazel, faster and stronger and more matched to the elegance of his lady weapon. He was not disturbed by the brief notion that his shadow dancer had violet eyes. The garden beckoned. He stilled the rapier’s song to ease free of the building’s constraints, too small to contain La Mariposa in flight, and let her silver edge challenge the sky’s waterfall instead. She was good enough to sever a single raindrop in twain. Hazel was not for all his skill, not always, but today he found moving to her came more easily somehow. The rhythm of heel against floor was gone, lost in the growling voice of thunder overhead, so he bowed and substituted one for the other, as he had traded shadow fencer for the fury of the Heavens as his partner in this dance. His lungs burned in the chill air. He was cold, soaked through and through and did not care. Strands of silver hair straggled across his face and he did not care. The world roared around him in water and lightning and he did not care, because she did not, and she was intent only slicing diamond after diamond of rain into the smallest of gem slivers. Hazel smiled to watch her, and she sang to him of perfection. Minutes or hours or years later, the tempest broke over his head, leaving him standing there with chest heaving, drenched with rain instead of sweat and muscles trembling, but La Mariposa held steadily in guard before him. No matter the burn in his arms, her tip did not waver. No matter the raggedness of his breath, the execution of her last, triumphant move was flawless. The Butterfly paid honor to the bested, receding storm for its worthy challenge, and Hazel came back to himself, letting her sink slowly to his side, wondering just what he’d been victorious in. The faintest whiff of acrid smoke drifted to him. He whirled, eyes widening. Genjyo Sanzo leaned against a pillar of the deck, the intensity of his unreadable stare burning cold over the cigarette. How long he’d been there Hazel could only guess, but the presence of a tiny pile of burnt ends indicated that the man had seen at the least the duel with the rain. Hazel didn’t know what to say. Sanzo evidently didn’t either, and his thin lips tightened on the cigarette in annoyance over the fact. They continued looking at each like idiots struck mute. Finally Sanzo’s violet gaze moved to the patches of broken sapphire appearing overhead, and a near imperceptible degree of tension drained from the taut set of his shoulders. “So,” he said abruptly, flicking away the cigarette. “Did you win?” Hazel wondered himself, but there was something in the way the monk’s glance avoided his, and at the same time couldn’t stay away from La Mariposa in his hands. Was the man possibly…impressed? Genjyo Sanzo, impressed by someone…what? Dueling with a storm? But why… “He gets cranky when it rains. Old memories.” A tidbit gleaned from eavesdropping. Oh. Oh. Old memories. Butterfly moved for him, sketching the victor’s salute as he bowed deeply. He caught the flicker of uncertainty across the blond’s expression, and tried very hard to keep from acknowledging it with a smile. Do you believe I would challenge the rain for you? “Yes,” Hazel said easily, blue eyes intent on Sanzo’s. “I think I did win something.” |
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