The Disfavored Hero Read online

  “Our master is good!” cried Madoka, not wanting to lose two friends at once. “We have always been together, Ushii!”

  “Our comrade is ill,” said Ushii.

  Goro Maki took one step forward and corrected Ushii, his tone not hinting at his own sense of loss. “She is dead.”

  “Have you seen the dead go rigid so soon? Or cold? No, Goro, she is not dead. But soon she may be, without magic to restore her.”

  Madoka lowered his head, knowing Ushii’s plan. But Goro would not believe it. He said angrily, “There is no magic in this valley, but from the lair of Shojiro Shigeno’s wickedest foe!”

  “That is true,” said Ushii as he began to walk away.

  “Ushii!” cried Madoka on his knees.

  Ushii walked on.

  “Ushii!” Madoka pounded fists into the soft, bloody mire. He shouted in desperation, “Do not go there, Ushii! Tomoe would rather die than be restored by black arts!”

  Ushii’s voice trailed back to them, saying, “We will be beside one another soon. Too soon, I fear. On the field of honor.”

  Madoka buried his face in his arms. Goro Maki put a supportive hand on his friend’s quivering shoulders.

  “Goodbye, my friends!” Ushii said, and was swallowed by the darkness.

  Tomoe Gozen awoke on a snow covered ground halfway down a mountain. She wore no clothing, but clutched in each hand were her souls. Slowly, she stirred, at first crouching and looking all around, then standing straight up with both swords pointing forward from her sides. The snow did not chill her naked body.

  Death permeated this place. Tomoe was apprehensive.

  Although it was not the proper season, light flurries were falling. Snow clung to her singed hair, rolled off her shoulders. The mountain road was cluttered with rocks of all sizes, against which the snows eddied. Nowhere did trees or grasses grow.

  A monster stepped out from behind a boulder, oozing slime from every pore, incongruously clad in an open blue jacket and nothing more. Its sudden appearance surprised Tomoe, but she faced it without reluctance. It greeted her with outstretched claws. Her swords moved once each, severing taloned hands before they could tear at her breasts. The monster howled and ran into the snowfall, dripping yellow blood from its arms.

  “Goro!” Tomoe cried, thinking of the last people she could recall having seen. “Ushii! Madoka!” Her calling echoed off the mountain.

  Tomoe could not fathom how she came to be where she had awakened. Confused, she began to climb the mountain. She was not certain why she chose the upward direction. The path would be easier were she to go downward; but it seemed imperative that she pursue the harder course.

  When she began to trek toward an unseen peak, two squat toadlike beings immediately hopped off the face of the mountain to block her path. They reared on bowed, spindly legs and glowered balefully from protuberant eyes. Tomoe’s swords slashed without hesitation, without thought, bursting through the skin of both bloated creatures. Air seeped out of their wounds, spurting green fluid. Their bulbous eyes registered surprise. Without any sound beyond the air escaping from their bodies, the toad-creatures leapt off the mountain side and into limbo.

  A wind cleared the sky of snow for one moment, and for that instant Tomoe beheld an array of bizarre monstrosities waiting along her path. They were hungry things, half human and half animal, wretched in appearance and posing threateningly.

  A group of five oddities walked down the path on stubby legs. These bore knives mounted on poles. Their bodies were pockmarked and scabby. Tomoe parried their spears a while, but became annoyed and dispatched them one after the next. Their screeching death-cries churned her stomach. Cursing, she struggled on up the mountain road, wary of the next attack.

  It was a difficult journey, but the struggles were not the fault of the creatures she slew with ease. For although the road was not steep, it affected her as though it were. Her breaths pulled hard. Her legs dragged heavily. Only her arms were unaffected, so her swords could take their toll.

  She sweated in the cold atmosphere. Snowflakes melted against hot skin.

  It was a day without moon or sun, giving Tomoe the eerie impression of having come to a land within a cosmos not intended for human habitation. She wondered if she were no longer living in the universe she had known before the battle on Shojiro Shigeno’s north estate.

  Monstrous semi-human things came at her without pause. With dizzying insistency, her swords carved the monsters up and down. Some fell upon the road, others over the side. A few climbed, wounded, straight up the mountain wall.

  As they died beneath her whirling blades, many screamed hideously, in pain or in sorrow, with bestial hatred or with solicitous pleas of mercy. They merited no pity for their agony and it was dangerous to share their hatred; to respond negatively or positively was to lose to them her strength. Their varied cries assaulted her ears and emotions more fully than the reality of their existence assaulted her flesh or sanity. She was grateful to the ones who made no sound at all.

  Most of them fought like beasts, reliant on fang and claw. A few were poorly armed with rusted swords and iron mallets. Now they came in vast numbers, as many as could crowd abreast without pushing one another off the road. Tomoe’s butterfly-longswords carved amongst them with unceasing ferocity.

  Her eyes tried to search the road beyond the untrained, ghoulish army. The snow was not heavy, but it was relentless, limiting visibility. She looked backwards only once. She was shocked to see no monsters nor their corpses, no snow, and no boulders cluttering the way. The path down was more inviting. If she faced the way of the monsters, she needn’t struggle more. It was with extreme difficulty that she looked upward again; and she didn’t look down thereafter.

  One huge monster pushed itself to the front of the rest. It had arms long and gnarled like thick branches, with several joints and elbows. It champed and frothed and had so huge a manner of confidence that Tomoe was given pause, though she would not give up ground.

  The monster’s extraordinary arms held the others back, as if to say, “She’s mine! I will kill her by myself!” She was startled to realize it had said precisely those words; and it said more: “None walk up this path who have fallen toward hell! The only safe route is down!”

  Its arms reached toward her throat, spidery fingers writhing. Although Tomoe’s swords were not so long as the monster’s reach, its confidence was unwarranted. It was too gawky to be coordinated. She had no trouble ducking beneath its gangling arms and running forward to stick the monster’s belly.

  Multi-jointed arms wrapped around itself in feeble protection, but still it would not move from her path. She stabbed it again, withdrew, and stabbed with the left. It stood there launching no offense or defense while she dug out its intestines and spleen and liver and gizzard. Its heart fell into the hole she made and she dug that out too. The monster spoke once more:

  “O, Tomoe Gozen, of all the monsters on the road to Hell, you are the grimmest of us all.” Then it toppled to its side, falling into eternity.

  With the knowledge that she was fighting her way out of hell, Tomoe decided she must pick up her pace. But the determination had a reverse effect. The more necessary she felt it was to reach the peak, the less accessible the peak became. The monsters lined up against the wall, allowing her to pass without interference. They laughed at her, wheezing and spitting and slapping their thighs. She could barely move.

  “I cannot go on!” she cried, and cried tears.

  The assemblage of beasts hooted and jumped up and down and performed antics like a cheering crowd. Tomoe felt like a clown entertaining the vilest of sentient beings—beings who might once have been human like herself.

  “I will help you, Tomoe!”

  It was a familiar voice. Above her on the road, Ushii stood in full regalia. His armor had turned to gold. The monsters hid their faces and covered their eyes and fell upon their knees, whining and sniffling. Ushii Yakushiji held his hand down to Tomoe.

&
nbsp; “I cannot reach you!” she wailed.

  Flurries of snow were pushed away by the light of Ushii. He yelled at her almost with anger, “You can!”

  She raised one leaden foot and took one step. Ushii took a step of equal distance backward. She raised her other foot to approach but he stepped back again so that she was no closer.

  “Wait for me, Ushii!”

  She nearly fell forward on her face, but saved herself and stumbled three steps up the mountain. Ushii’s feet did not appear to move, yet he was still no nearer. He floated backward like a wraith; and Tomoe saw that his feet were a hand’s width above the ground.

  For a long while she could not move. Ushii faded back into the snow, which had returned to its former thickness. Soon, he was invisible. Tomoe called for him to come back.

  “Follow me, Tomoe. Follow me to the top.”

  “I cannot see you!” she cried desperately.

  “Follow my voice.”

  “Ushii!”

  “Come to me.”

  “Where are you!”

  “You are more powerful than the road to hell, Tomoe.”

  “Ushii, I cannot hear your voice!”

  “Yes, you can hear it, and you will come.”

  She stumbled another step onward. “No. You are wrong. I cannot hear. I cannot move.”

  It went thus, step by step. There were fewer monsters on the road and they no longer hindered her passage. She struggled upward, staggering through the snow. When she had come nearly within arm’s reach of the top, the oppressive atmosphere closed on her more tightly. She fell and could go no further.

  Ushii appeared again. He lay on his belly, reaching down from the top to where she had fallen. “Take my hand,” he said. She reached up until their fingers almost met.

  “You are too far away, Ushii.”

  He replied, “I am right behind you, pushing up.”

  She felt him then, behind her, pushing up; suddenly she could reach his hand, and he gripped her wrists. He pulled her onto the top and vanished. Tomoe Gozen curled into a ball of weariness and cried herself to sleep.

  On regaining consciousness, Tomoe did not open her eyes, but tried to decode her whereabouts by her other senses. The first sensation was of a vast interior. Warmth surrounded her. Oddly, she was standing firmly on her feet, and felt the weight of full armor upon her. She felt bathed, rested, and at the peak of strength. A strange ennui alone kept her from opening her eyes.

  A sweet but repulsive odor filled her nostrils, commanding relaxation. A muscle flexed spontaneously along her shoulders. Along her jaw there was a momentary spasm. She presumed there would be no problem moving about, but there did not seem to be any occasion to do so.

  There were others in the room with her. A familiar voice asked with unfamiliar meekness, “Does she live? Is she well?” It was Ushii, sounding more cowed than she had ever known him to be. His presence should have heartened her, for they were closest of comrades; or his tenor should have alarmed her, for she had never known him to quail. But she could muster no sense of emotion or concern. Whatever may have broken Ushii’s spirit, she felt no interest in the matter.

  It was as though some part of herself had been left on the mountain road from hell, leaving her callous and unfeeling, devoid of solicitude. Yet she felt the necessary weights of her souls hanging from each hip, like equal portions on a balancing scale, and knew that she was whole. The dark, brooding presence of her swords was all the comfort she required.

  A voice as honey-sweet and repugnant as the thick air replied to Ushii. “She does live, samurai, and is well.” There was odd laughter, like that of an old crone. Then there was a command which Tomoe knew was meant for her: “Open your eyes.”

  It was not a master’s command, for she had taken no oath. She was a masterless samurai, and felt no compulsion to reply. Yet politeness was one tenet of bushido, so she obeyed. Before her stood Ushii, not as the golden warrior who had helped her on that otherworld road, but a hunched and drained man with circles beneath his eyes, frightened as a small animal.

  He gasped, stepped away from her, and cried out, “Her eyes! What have you done to her eyes!”

  Beyond Ushii, at the far wall of the richly tapestried chamber, a skeletal man sat upon an ornate throne of gold and jade. The seat was too large, making the oldster look even more narrow. He might have been taller than either samurai when standing, but sitting his depleted thinness made him seem small and frail as a sparrow. His head wobbled slightly, too large to be supported by a body with so little muscle. He had a long, thin beard. His eyes were gleeful. His extended yellow teeth were homely and gay. In front of his oversized throne burned a brazier on three bronze legs molded in the shape of hawks’ feet. From this the sweet odor exuded.

  Once again the thin, grey man deigned to reply to Ushii: “Have you not seen eyes such as those before, samurai?” His voice was that of an old woman, teasing and urging Ushii toward a realization of Tomoe’s fate.

  “In last night’s battle,” said Ushii, “on the faces of murderous peasants.”

  The sorcerer looked more pleased.

  Tears rolled down Ushii’s face as Tomoe watched him, unmoved, empty of compassion.

  “O, cruel master!” Ushii began. “You have tricked me! I bargained my service for her life, but what kind of life have you wrought?”

  Streamers of smoke thin as the sorcerer’s beard rose from the brazier. From behind this faint curtain he spoke in a lecturing tone: “I am told that a samurai without a master is little more than a samurai without honor. I am delighted to serve as master to Tomoe Gozen, thereby to insure her station.” He liked his own jest, and grinned horridly.

  “Woe!” cried Ushii, and scratched his own face until it bled. “It is too wicked to be true!”

  “How so?” the stork-thin venerable snapped. He gestured toward Tomoe with a hand that looked like bones. The hand wavered like a snake. He said, “Hers will remain the life of a warrior, the only life she ever sought. I could have made her a sing-song girl. I could make her play lute or samisen, and recite lurid poetry for all who visit my court. But I value her for her prowess, and am pleased that you brought her to me. She is known even in the Celestial Kingdoms of Ho as a courageous fighter, having slain many of Ho’s best soldiers to reach a swordsmith from Naipon and end his career. It will be rich irony when I return to my country to overthrow the old dynasty, with Tomoe Gozen as my general. Weep no more, Ushii Yakushiji, for Tomoe is alive and mighty, whereas you are merely alive.”

  Ushii fell into a crouch, wrapped arms around his knees. In obedience to his new master, he did not weep.

  The sorcerer called aloud, “Tomoe Gozen.”

  Like a titanic stone warrior come to life, Tomoe slowly turned her head and looked precisely at the one who called.

  “Tomoe Gozen, you have dishonored yourself. What must a samurai do?”

  Although Tomoe could not recall what she had done to bring dishonor to herself, she felt vaguely that this was true. She removed a short knife from a sheath at her thigh and raised it to her throat. Seppuku among men involved inflicting disemboweling wounds upon oneself; among women, the ritual suicide consisted of jigai, the stabbing or cutting of the throat. Ushii shouted,

  “It is not true! The honor of Tomoe is unreproachable!”

  The sorcerer waved an unsteady hand and said, “I was mistaken, honorable Tomoe.” His glee manifested itself in an ugly fashion when he peeled back his lips to reveal black, receding gums. Tomoe replaced the knife in its sheath, taking once again her rigid posture. Throughout the brief ordeal, her expression had not altered.

  More delighted than ever with his puppet, the sorcerer started another game. “Tomoe!” he said. “An evil man reposes on this throne, thin as sticks and easily slain. What deed would a strong samurai perform?”

  Butterfly-longswords slid out of their scabbards. Tomoe stalked forward. Ushii was caught between fear and delight. Tomoe’s swords were held at her extreme sides. They
were long enough to reach across the brazier. The skeletal sorcerer spoke calmly to Ushii,

  “If I said for you to stop her, you would have to try.” Again, he exposed his gums with a horrible grin. “Am I right?”

  “I am sworn to your service,” Ushii said simply.

  “I would not think of that command!” exclaimed the sorcerer, toying cruelly with Ushii’s emotions. To Tomoe he said, “Why do you hesitate?”

  Her swords came together so quickly it was almost impossible to see the motion.

  The sorcerer didn’t flinch. The swords stopped a hair’s width from either side of his neck. Even Tomoe could not guess what staid the double blow. For a moment she felt concern rise from inside her, from wherever feeling was hidden. The sorcerer must have seen the change in the woman’s visage, for his homely smile dwindled and he said swiftly,

  “Tomoe, you must forget that swords forged in the Celestial Kingdoms cannot harm me! Forget my game immediately and feel at peace with yourself.”

  The woman stepped away from the warmth and sweet repugnance of the brazier, her sense of smell deadened by the fumes. The fear that had almost awakened her was forgotten. She saw Ushii Yakushiji on his knees beside her, whining pitifully. Why he was so dispirited she did not know and could waste little effort considering.

  “What have I brought upon you, Tomoe?” Ushii wailed. “What have I done?”

  “Honored warrior,” said the sorcerer, a bony finger leveled at Tomoe. “If you can speak, pledge service to me.”

  Ushii fell from crouch to knees and crawled toward the side of the sorcerer’s throne, begging, “Lord Huan, do not command her oath! My service was the price of resurrection, not that of Tomoe Gozen.”

  He ignored the begging samurai and waited for Tomoe’s response. Although her mouth opened, she could make no sound. It was as though her tongue were cleaved to her palate.

  “As I suspected,” said Lord Huan, mostly to himself. “No matter!” He affected a bored demeanor as he tossed particles of sorcerous incense into the pot before his throne. He continued, “She will obey me in any case, whether or not she is bound by her own word. But I am intrigued by this code of the samurai, this honor you value above your lives. It provides you a framework for pristine logic and action, but the ends are not always moral. That makes samurai valuable to one as myself, for I too value loyalty above morality.”