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  The Disfavored Hero

  The Tomoe Gozen Saga, Book One

  Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  in memoriam,

  to Lumchuan “Lek” Salmonson

  my Buddhist mother

  I am coming to you, Lek,

  on the river of manu colors

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  by Wendy Adrian Wees

  Tomoe Gozen in Armor

  Fighting Her Way Up the Road from Hell

  Ushii Meets His Boyhood Friend In Battle

  The Sorcerer Huan on His Throne

  Ninja on the Rooftops

  Little Bushi and the Kappa Vampire

  The Strolling Nun in the Tomb of Great Lord Walks

  Tomoe Gozen Meets the Wicked Priest on the Road

  Madame Shigeno Beseeches the Daibutsu

  Creatures of the Invisible Path

  The Dragon Queen Chastises Her Husband

  The Final Duel

  PROLOGUE:

  The Magic Nation

  On that island empire, as it is perceived in our own universe and which the West calls Japan and the East calls Nippon, millennia passed during which the pious honored a multitude of gods, despite that no one had ever seen a godling walk the Earth. Those same people believed in magnificent monsters; yet never had there been so much as a tibia of proof for this outlandish bestiary. These folk were also convinced of magic, although every miracle resolved into a trick or natural thing. And if a curse were delivered to a foe, it would be so devoutly believed that the cursed individual might curl up and die of painful imaginings; or the cursed one’s family might make ready a grave in advance and grievously encourage the curse to work true, though all the while the fact was that no objective interference had occurred.

  There would come a time, in Japan, when these discrepancies were noticed, and people would ask, “If there are gods and demons and gigantic beasts, where do they hide?” For the physics of the known universe left no hole in which might be encompassed the unknown. Godless people scoffed the vilest and most damning of curses, and were not surprised to pass unhindered, for words could never injure.

  In those days, the edge of the sword had become the muzzle of a gun. Life which had once been bright like steel, and fearful, was no less fearful, but had become dull and small and leaden. Death, then, had no meaning; and if war was not more cruel, it was at least less holy.

  In Japan, as in all the world of that terrible latter age, it would come to pass that wonder died.

  But in a dimension next to ours, there is a world very much like Earth. On this world is an island empire called Naipon, which bears striking resemblance to old Japan; for Japan is a magic nation, existing in all human ages upon every Earth beneath Amaterasu the Shining Goddess. In that other world’s Japan called Naipon, gods scored the cities with their rakes when they were angered, and if they were pleased, pissed saké in the wells and rivers and excreted gold in the farmers’ furrows. On Naipon, beasts slew mighty samurai with claws and horns, or else their grim heads decorated the pikes of samurai who were mightier. Occult happenings were the meat of everyday life, and fell sorceries sprang from the fingertips of wicked villains. And most assuredly, you can well believe, a curse was never lightly spoken; for the fulfillment was not merely certain, but also rich with irony so that the curser, as well as the cursed, could meet unseemly ends.

  On Naipon, it would never be, that wonder died.

  Thus it is found out that things once believed by the people of Japan by rote of faith alone, they of Naipon witnessed absolutely. Even Amaterasu the Shining Goddess was unsure how this came to be—whether in Naipon the hopes and fears of Japan coalesced into a different and stranger reality, or if in Japan the glory and terror of Naipon echoed through the dreams of the Japanese.

  PART I

  The Way of the Warrior

  In Naipon, as in the Japan of our own Earth, there lived a woman named Tomoe. She followed the bushido, or Way of the Warrior, and only once in her life did she stray from these tenets. This is the story of how sorcery caused Tomoe Gozen to break faith with her bushido, and what she did to regain honor.

  Ushii pushed his kneeling friend off balance, causing Madoka to drop the shoulder armor he was attaching to himself. “You’re not nice!” complained Madoka, then moved his foot quickly to unsettle Ushii in turn. Tomoe Gozen shook her head and passed a momentary smile to the room’s fourth occupant, a severe and powerful man named Goro Maki. Goro’s eyes glinted, even though he did not return the smile. “They are like little boys,” said Tomoe. She suppressed laughter when Ushii slapped Madoka alongside the face in playful test of reflexes.

  Goro Maki answered Tomoe in his resonant, intense voice: “They have been together since military school, since they were six or seven. I envy them their love.”

  They were childlike only when together, away from the eyes of servants or lords. Other times, Ushii Yakushiji and Madoka Kawayama were nearly as serious as Goro Maki.

  These four samurai—three men and one woman—went through the grooming rituals and ritual of applying their own armor piece by piece. Goro and Tomoe, by not being rowdy, completed these processes first. They sat on their knees, with hands at rest on the upper part of their legs, watching Ushii and Madoka behave whimsically. The hilt of a shortsword protruded from the center of Goro’s obi belt, and his longsword lay at his side on the floor. Two similarly paired long and shortswords waited on their horizontal racks near a wall. Tomoe’s two swords were of an uncommon design, both of equal length, and sheathed one at each hip rather than through her obi. Goro’s head turned until his gaze settled on these swords. Tomoe noticed his lack of appreciation.

  “You still think these will cause me trouble, my friend?”

  Goro looked mountainous on his knees. He visibly shrank in upon himself over Tomoe’s minor challenge. Then he replied in a harsh, measured tone, “You have killed warriors as strong as me for doubting the metal of swords forged on foreign ground. It is not for Goro Maki to say Tomoe Gozen has changed since returning from the Celestial Kingdoms of Ho.”

  “You are too formal,” said Tomoe, her mood still pleasant. “Please be more blunt. If you doubt I should wear foreign blades when we take new oaths of vassalage to our warlord, do not hesitate to criticize.”

  “Your swords are very good,” said Goro, but his growling intonation suggested otherwise. “Do not tease me as Ushii does Madoka; I am too proud—too proud to die by a sword not made in Naipon.”

  Tomoe was stung. No one had ever dared to say they would be ashamed to die by her swords, although as Goro stated, she had killed those who thought her style and weapons inferior. She did not press the matter further with Goro. He was a stickler about warrior codes; he would never fully approve of her alien steel, even if it were true that the swordsmith in Ho had been Naiponese born.

  They were butterfly-longswords, wrought by a smith outcast from Naipon. Tomoe had traveled to Ho two years previous and assassinated the Naiponese traitor who served foreign strengths, who made for others swords with edge and temper intended by the gods for samurai alone. It had been a special mission performed under guidance of a messenger of the Mikado. She had been directed to find and destroy every bastard sword of Naipon craft and foreign design. She warred against the nefarious mainlanders with effective haste and completed her mission; but they had left their mark upon her by route of their variant and seductive philosophy. For the samurai’s sword is the samurai’s soul; and the second sword was always a short one which could ne
ver violate the longsword as true soul. The shortsword was considered “guardian of the soul.” Contrary to this norm, Tomoe’s blades were mirror images of one another, defying any to guess which bore her soul.

  People of Ho had taught her of the dual nature of the human soul and of the universe at large; and it did not seem to Tomoe that the concept would be an affront to Amaterasu the Shining Goddess. Indeed, on careful reflection, it seemed to Tomoe that she had always had two souls, and that if she accepted them both they would no longer be in conflict. When wrecking the swords of the traitorous smith she had saved aside two, and had not yet regretted it. The alien swords accommodated her new feelings, while in no way hindering her faith with the bushido.

  These swords quickly became her trademark. On returning to her own land, they had made her seem, even to other samurai, as awesome as she was skilled. Yet, she would never convince Goro Maki that her swords were proper. As she valued his friendship, she let the issue pass.

  Ushii was still in his playful mood. He grinned sidelong at Tomoe, saying, “A good day, hey, Tomoe? We are Lord Shigeno’s finest samurai! Our retainership might have expired tonight, but we have been asked to pledge ourselves afresh. With the sorcerer Huan exiled from his own country and living in this valley, there is need for strong defense. We are a good four! Together, none of us will ever die, even in the face of foreign magic. Apart, hai!, we would not be half so strong.”

  “Speak of your own strength,” said Madoka Kawayama, interrupting his talkative friend. “Tomoe and Goro are stronger than you or me!”

  “Hai!, but we have saved their lives as often as they have saved ours! Is it not true, Tomoe?”

  “It’s true, Ushii. Together, the four of us are invincible. We have proven it many times.”

  “Then—,” Ushii had tied his last piece of armor in place and scooted on his knees toward Tomoe Gozen and Goro Maki. He looked less mischievous than a moment before. He said very seriously, “Then, let us swear fealty to one another. When we come before Shojiro Shigeno tonight, let us do so as a single samurai, not four!”

  Tomoe looked pensive. This was not a matter for hasty decision. “It has been done before,” she said.

  By then, Madoka Kawayama had also finished attaching his armor and scooted near. He said, “Ushii and I swore ourselves to be brothers when we were children. Never since that time have either of us made similar vows to others. But the four of us are unique! I agree with Ushii. We should swear lifelong fealty to Lord Shigeno and always be together.”

  Goro Maki’s face was long. His arms remained folded across his chest.

  “You are silent, Goro,” said Tomoe. “Would you disagree with our friends’ proposition?”

  For a long time he did not speak, which trait they had all grown accustomed to. Ushii was more anxious than usual, however, and lent encouragement, “Lord Shigeno would be glad to give permission, and bind us officially by his insignia. Even were the sorcerer Huan no threat to the clan, still would Shojiro Shigeno be glad to keep us. He is a great warlord, and we are great samurai.”

  Goro Maki placed both hands on the floor before himself and bowed until his forehead touched the tatami mat upon which he knelt. When he rose, he said in his deepest, most serious tone, “As you know, I am last of my family. If I die without heirs, there will be none to hold the tablets of my ancestors. Because I am an orphan, I have valued all of you as my only family, though you may think I seldom show it. Also, being last of my line, I appreciate the invulnerability we provide each other, so that I may live long enough to sire many brats, if some girl will ever have me.”

  Ushii began to bow before Goro many times, as might an excited peasant. Madoka took up this adamant occupation as well. Madoka said, “Never an orphan, Goro! You have us! We will honor your family’s tablets as being our family too!”

  “The word of the samurai!” promised Ushii.

  Tomoe Gozen was moved by all this, although she felt a little bit apart from it. As her swords were different from theirs, so was her way of thinking. She recognized something excessively sentimental in the nature of her friends’ exchanges; yet she knew these men to be entirely sincere, and she loved them.

  Goro Maki, never one to register much emotion, was for once profoundly affected. He could not speak easily. His eyes glistening with moisture, he managed to say,

  “Thank you! Thank you very much! I will happily swear myself to Lord Shojiro Shigeno, not for a standard term of retainership, but for as long as I live, and in the same breath bind my life to yours!”

  The three men flung themselves into each others’ embraces and wailed a happy lament. Ushii opened the circle of arms to invite Tomoe Gozen:

  “Will you, too, Tomoe? Will you be our only sister?”

  Their mutual love drew her like a magnet. Tomoe started to scoot toward her friends, but a paper door slid aside and a servant interrupted. It was a maid. She came into the room on her knees, carrying a folded letter. Shyly, she set it on the floor and pushed it toward Tomoe Gozen. “From my mistress, the warlord’s daughter,” the girl said quietly, then slipped backward from the room, gone as fast as she had come.

  When Tomoe took up the folded letter, Ushii, mischievous again, dared to say, “She likes you, Tomoe! Lady Toshima likes you very much!” But Tomoe Gozen looked disturbed and Ushii shut his mouth.

  Madoka Kawayama leaned forward to say to Tomoe, “You live your life unexpectedly for a woman. A girl’s crush is a natural thing. You should always expect it.”

  Tomoe Gozen bowed as quickly and curtly as she could and, touching the letter to her forehead, she stood to go in haste. Ushii and Madoka were grinning more boyishly than ever, but Goro Maki spoiled the mood. He had regained his greatest severity of expression as he said in a low, guttural voice, “She did not say she would be our sister. She did not say so.”

  His two friends were instantly drained of gaiety, knowing Goro Maki so well that they could see beyond his scowlings to the sorrow underneath.

  Tomoe’s white stallion Raski had been groomed and armored as fully as the samurai. Because of the horse’s fighting spirit, he too would be sworn a vassal. Tomoe walked to a small, narrow exercise yard. It was yet more than an hour before darkness or the oaths made to the warlord. Tomoe hoped to take Raski once more through his movements before that time. Or, perhaps, she only wanted an excuse for leave-taking prepared in advance, should the meeting with Toshima be uncomfortable.

  An array of weapons hung from the steed’s saddle and three sharp horns had been fitted to his forehead. For all that, he seemed gentle. Tomoe patted his muzzle and whispered kindnesses to him. To hear him snuffle and see him dote on the woman who had raised him from a colt, it was difficult to comprehend how he had acquired the nickname “man-eater.” In battle, he was a different animal, ferocious as a tiger from the Celestial Kingdoms.

  Raski bolted away from Tomoe for a moment, circled a corner of the exercise yard, then came back with his eyes peeled back in a strange way. “Are you nervous, brave boy?” asked Tomoe, finding her stout animal’s behavior out of the ordinary. “Are you, too, anxious to see our Lord?”

  The animal stiffened. Thunder rolled over the valley, down from the clear sky.

  “This is unlike you!” Tomoe exclaimed. “Thunder is your element!”

  The ominous rumbling died away. Raski lowered his head, as though ashamed of his inexplicable fright. Because she knew her alert beast too well to believe he had quaked without reason, Tomoe was unsettled, but could detect nothing untoward about the yard.

  “There is something to which I must tend,” said Tomoe. “I’ll return for you soon.” She left the stallion and strode along a path’s flat stones toward the warlord’s garden. She put Raski’s momentary discomfort from her mind. Entering the tea gardens, she absorbed the illusion of peace and breathed the flowery fragrances.

  An ornate, highly arched footbridge crossed a pebble-bedded brook. Tomoe lingered on this bridge to peer across the valley. In the distan
ce a misty waterfall could be seen, its crashing roar barely audible. Beyond the cultivated fields and over the hills, a storm was gathering swiftly. But on the warlord’s tea gardens, Amaterasu continued to smile.

  The woman warrior stood in harsh contrast to the genteel grounds. Each segment of her armor was made from strips of bamboo laced together with twine and hardened with many layers of dark brown lacquer. The segments were joined with red cord and held closed around her torso by a cloth belt. A metal kabuto or war helmet fanned down behind her head and bore a sickle moon on the top. Her hair was straight and cut at shoulder length. Her curved butterfly-longswords swung back from each hip.

  As she looked over the valley, it took a moment for Tomoe to realize what was disturbing about the otherwise familiar and appealing landscape: no one tilled or planted in the fields. The absence of heimin was disconcerting; but Tomoe was of another class, ignorant of their ways. Perhaps there was a peasant holiday of which she was unaware.

  The warlord’s mansion stretched like a lazy animal among the gardens—not a tall structure, but spread out, with many terraces and windows and carved frames. The columns bracing the porches were made of lengths of thick bamboo tortured into unusual shapes.

  Against a rice-paper window Tomoe saw the regal silhouette of Toshima, daughter of Lord Shojiro Shigeno, moving about her rooms with ethereal grace. An unobtrusive handmaiden slid a door open, and there stood splendid Toshima, gazing into the early evening’s sun. Her layers of flowing kimonos were colorful, rich, and tasteful, made of silk brocade. Her hands were perfectly tiny. The beauty’s languid eyes scanned the cool, moist gardens as she took each short step along a mossy path. Her gaze came to rest on Tomoe standing on the bridge, and Lady Toshima smiled narrowly, reminding Tomoe of peach blossoms about to open in sunlight. She beckoned Tomoe with her fan, and watched with sideways glance as the warrior approached.

  “You are dressed for war, samurai?”