The Vermilion Witch

It’s been a long time, son.

Dont call me that.

What do I call you then. The old man was holding his stout fishing rod made from the white oak behind the temple. A dark and tall and sagacious pine past its prime past his shoulders downstream the crisp river. He saw the swordsman trying to come up with an answer, but before he opened his mouth, a cormorant skyrocketed from the water and broke its surface. Little droplets in the air everywhere like gems. The bird landed beside the old man.

I have a quest for you.

Send him.

He is busy.

The man squinted. The cormorant was busy dumping silver fish, small but quick and still some vitality, into a weathered creel a notorious fisherman from the village made for the old man. The azure-necked bird paid no attention to the language of men and focused merely on the task in front of it.

But, I’ll do my duty. What’s the mission.

The princess gave word to the clan-head.

I thought you were the head.

There’s always someone above us.

You mean this is straight from the imperial family?

The old fisherman nodded and retracted the line from the rushing water. He uncoupled the hook and put it in the sidepocket of his torn but trusted haori his late friend wore, and detached the line from the top of the white white rod. He put the rod down like it was some brittle, worthless stick like any other one from any other forest meant for firewood. He spooled the line into a crude ball with both his hands, and put it in the other pocket.

I dont got time for this.

The old man his spine had shortened over time, he could almost reach the bird’s beak without stooping down. He untied the beak, and once freed the big blue bird launched towards the old man’s shoulders, hovered, and then perched on the right one without much fuss whatsoever.

Come with me.

Basket with fish in hand he swaggered towards his hut, and his former pupil sauntered along with one hand on the crimson hilt of his sword stuck snugly in his hakama, and the other loose by his side like he was accustomed to when riding his big black stallion. Once the swordsman entered the old man was already seated in lotus position by the sole window and the white and bright and opulent light square in his back shone straight into the entrant’s eyes.

How did you? he said.

The old man said nothing and instead threw him a manilla scroll which held the imperial scarlet seal. Already broken, and the paper-edges were frayed, and he would have sworn he saw soot on some of them, as if it had traveled not only from far country but also travailed through laborous and dangerous interchangings. Which swordsmen were up to such tasks, belonged to them, clung for their dear souls, from which old and noble and close to bygone ways?

After he was done reading he put the paper in his hakama.

So this is about a sword. Like I said, You better send your favorite knight-errant. I already have a sword.

This is a royal decree. From the family that traces its origins all the way back to the beginnings of our country itself. If the royal palace wants a blade, we will either forge it for them, or acquire it by any means necessary.

We have the material. We have the skill. The renown. Give them what they want. I know at least two blacksmiths who can make them such a blade.

The fine print.

They want tears from a god. That’s just a myth.

And you will find out the truth.

Why me.

There are eight worthy opponents for you to defeat.

He said nothing.

The old man fiddled with his right hand fingers, wiggling and wagging, a black and gold lacquered ring recently put there.

OK, a quest, a mission, an order from the highest order. Kill eight samurai.

Not just any eight. Eight from myth. Legend goes they are invincible under the red and rising sun.

You know the name of my red-hilted blade. You know why it’s dyed deep red. No one surpasses me in strength.

Have you surpassed the storm stance?

Two ravens croaked in the distance, heard through the window.

This is an opportunity for you to test that very strength you are so proud of. That which is perhaps the entirety of your pride. You are not yet undefeatable. That is why I am sending you.

Instead of him. You’re saying I cant beat him.

When you entered, I was already seated. If a gaki like you cannot trace the mirage of some senile’s old magic spells, what chance do you have in order to defeat the greatest swordsman our clan has ever produced? Perchance not even our clan, his might exceeds far beyond any known mortal realm history has ever known.

He can beat the eight. So if I beat the eight, will you give me the opportunity to invoke the clan’s primordial clause to duel for the seat of the champion and retrieve the black blade?

Retrieve.

The young swordsman now put two hands on the crimson hilt.

Ride North till the snow. Then ride even further past mankind’s last pale. Ride till snow is no more and then ride till ruin of your horse is near. Then you will see the cave that leads to the heart of darkness. Walk into its pulsing and murky maw.

You know, the black blade is mine just as much as it is his.

It belongs to the clan, till the end of time. The oracle has spoken, the elders have conferred, and the prophecy has already been foretold, completed, and therefore the man of the black sword has already been chosen.

He turned his back on the man who raised him, but also excommunicated him. I know I dont belong. You just summoned me, to do your dirty work.

Then the man left without a word more, so he did not see pain burning in the old man’s watery eyes who sat with his rod and cane by the window of his lone hut on the outskirts of town.

He knew the ride was going to be long so he visited the most frequented waterhole of the area, which was only favored because it was the only tabernacle at hand. The dark horse’s breath trailed up like mist in the cold night as he tied its rugged lead. He walked in as the doors swiveled first fast, and then finally slowly stopped when he had already made his way to the bar. He nodded at the barkeep.

I need information on the cave.

The man poured him a translucent liquid that might have been sake and slid it to him in a stout glass. There are eight swordsmen.

So they say, so I know. Everyone knows that. What they dont know is that you fought at least one of them.

He looked at the bartender’s right hand which had two fingers missing.

How far did you get?

No further than the first.

Name.

Geki.

Speciality?

Armor.

That’s it? Armor. My sword can pierce the greatest of armors. My dead-eye can locate the chinks in armor forged by the finest smiths of the land.

He took a sip without making a grimace. Stone could not have been smoother.

His armor is blessed by the gods. The yakusanoikazuchi, the eight kami of thunder.

Ah the quest begins. OK, I’ll bite. Which type of storm does this Geki hold?

Tsuchi-ikazuchi. The thunder of the earth born from the decaying body of the goddess Izanami, emerging from her right hand.

He finished his drink.

Better get going.

You’re not taking this serious.

I am. The ride is far. Better get ahead now or I wont get there before Saturday.

You think this is a joke? He put the hand which was missing two fingers on the table.

He rubbed his nose, canted his head. Then he stared deep into the veteran’s eyes.

You see for yourself whether his armorplates are impregnable. I’ll give you this. Since I paid the price for it, might as well pay it forward. His weapon of choice is a halberd, looks like a Chinese guan gong dao. It’s impossibly long and heavy and seems even just as improbable to wield. And not only that, he uses just one hand. His red right hand. This Geki is a freak of nature, I can tell you that. A kyojin. They call him Earth Thunder, because he strikes low to the ground. Tries to cut down your legs right from under you. I tried to stop it. To no avail.

He curled the digits beside the ones absent, phantom pain, those little yet significant sacrifices on some altar of this unknown man’s personal legend. Story no one knows, but is his to keep for the remainder of his days.

Thank you, he said.

Then the barkeep poured him another drink. On the house. One for the road. Then he poured himself a drink too.

To legends.

And kings.

To the road and joys it brings, that no drink nor tavern can ever equate.

The black stallion rode north till he saw snow. Then he rode on. He saw the damp and crooked and wooden pale. He gritted his teeth. The pole was the very same the old man had sent him past. Then there had been no quest, it was no request, one day he was just simply banished. The clan decided that his actions were evil, beyond evil, beyond control, so they marked him a wild beast and outlaw for life. He had shaken his head in great disbelief and fury. They were a clan of known assassins, ninja and samurai. Ultimately they were killers not sentinels of men as the elders would rather believe themselves to be. They fancied make belief over reality and they shunned those who spoke both straight from the soul and acted directly. They shunned the true spirits they themselves took centuries upon centuries of sacrifice to forge and harbor, and had deployed with ancient wisdom, through secrecy and esotericism. He descended from Heiji his jetblack horse. His black boots crunched the pure white snow. He stood in front of the dull and spiritless post. He breathed in and then out and his breath was hot but not heavy and before the mist had dispersed he had cut the wood in two and sheathed his katana back into its scabbard. He got back on the horse and he rode on.

He found the cavemouth even though he did not ride for ruin nor till Heiji was ruined. In fact, the horse’s fabled immortal spirit was still intact and he hardly seemed to catch his breath. Many notable folk, nobles, and elite wanted to purchase him but he always felt there were two things that made a devout knight and his phenomenal horse was one of them. He patted his side, which was going up and down steadily, and brushed the dark coat. The cave’s outer dark seemed able to even cover snow he was standing on past its inner dominion and control, somehow light was swallowed whole. He entered.

It was so dark he could not see his hands nor his feet and he heard Heji whinny one last time, before he drove deeper and deeper and droned so deep there was almost no sound, till he heard drops sliding down flowstone walls and spires of stalactite. He heard waterdrops pepper a small pool and he heard water on steel. Geki was close by, barely a few feet. He stood mute like some deranged gargoyle taking the lashings of storm and rain.

I know you’re in here.

How did you know?

You smell.

Geki said, It’s been a long time since I’ve had a worthy opponent. It’s been a very, very long time. Tsuchi-ikazuchi has blessed me with a long life. Perhaps immortality.

I get it. You’re a mythical warrior of some legendary status and you’re one of the great eight swordsmen. You bring despair to those who are weak, have no backbone, nor technique.

I am not just breaker of storms and earth itself. I’ve shattered clans, ruined grand houses and dapper dynasties. What say you to do that? Come forth. Who are you to claim this territory and make claim for my armor?

I have zero use for armor. For I wear the shirt of faith in myself.

Geki laughed hard, it sounded more like a moan, it sounded like roaring thunder, rumbling low too low to the ground. Disturbance to ear and more, disturbance to disorder.

Darkness is never complete, for there is always just enough lost light pooled in bundles spearing from above, and depending on the onlooker it would seem yearning towards the solemn sky, searching for kinship. It was Geki who made the first step and thus became visible in such a ray of concentrated spotlight. His armor was truly resplendent. It fractured the light brilliantly like a diamond cut to perfection. All fables were true and any mortal would have only laid their eyes for a fraction on its brilliancy to believe Geki was blessed by the gods. Shoulder plates made from gunmetal so black it seemed obsidian. The finishing touch as golden rims, tracing from the sides to the centerpiece. Framing Geki’s herculean chest with strength greater than tigers and bears combined. Such force of nature, no, such a force of the gods could never be contained within a mere mortal vessel. Thus, there was Geki. Biceps like boulders, triceps like thunder and coiled steel. The darkness made no prominence of the storied samurai’s lower body but its presence was felt, like mountains in the night.

Geki also took the second step, but so far the possessor of the crimson-hilted sword did not stir. The halberdier took this as a divine sign to embrace the initiative with his entire might and his right hand moved and it seemed as if his great guan gong dao apparated from outer and black and empty space. Like some cold and callous comet without will of its own it rained upon the bequested.

A fierce yet brief ping sang crystal clear through the cave. The barkeep who was missing a couple digits was in the right. Geki had swung with the guan gong do and he had swung from the right. He swung with all his might, but for the true and rightful owner of the lightning fast black blade no speed was beyond reach, no velocity was rapturous enough. If Geki were still alive he would perhaps have seen the quaint yet short-lived smirk toying on the corner of the swordman’s lip who bested him with a single storied strike so succinct and deadly serene that it would write sagas all by itself all on its own.

When he sheathed his sword again, and the taka tsuba clicked in place, the thunder of earth had fallen to his knees. He moved on towards the corpse and the cornflower blue pool showed him his incomplete reflection. Not because of the water’s inclarity for it was fresh and straight from the source, but because of the rumbling from deep within the belly of the cavernous labyrinth. Spires speared down so he had to hurry. He searched the deadman’s armor and red right gauntlet for clues whereabout the next lesser god would be to slay. None. Then a tiny star of light struck something radiant which caught his eye. The braggadocious berserker’s helmet and downfall. He hoisted it, felt its heft, knew its providence, and then he turned it upside down and looked inside.

The cave was collapsing so he took his unique loot with him to the outside. He put Geki’s helmet in Heiji’s rust-red saddlebag. And he rode back to the clan village without looking back.

The barkeep was giddy and drunk from all the sake the victorious and valorous swordsman had bought him. Geki’s helm shone yet still next to the dull glasses filled to the brim.

You didnt tell me how you actually bested the beast.

The todome is always the second strike.

Huh?

The one kill-move is always two in one.

You’re getting drunk.

Yeah. When I drink too much I start to talk like jiji.

The drunkenness hung in the air, and it was so thick you could cleave it only with a well-sharpened axe.

Where they attack they themselves are weak. Geki for some apparent reason, unknown to anyone, had a propensity to go for the knees. So I had myself a think that maybe the knees were his critical spot. There the armor would cave upon itself. My hunch turned out to be right and my sword cut right through and buckled his legs and fell him right where he stood.

What is this talk of a second strike?

After that first one, I used the momentum of it, to pivot around him. The same way you pivot the opponent’s sword in tsuki kage, only now I used his whole mass. Then I had his back, like they say in jujitsu. I activated the iaido second form, where one strikes backwards.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. But what about the guan dao? Wasnt it too fast? The man looked at his severed stumps.

He was fast. But I’ve dueled faster. And for some reason the cave was ill lit that sealed his fate. I work best in the dark. And the floor was wet, which I used to my advantage to get into a slide, which accelerated my initial strike and rotation. I was always known within the clan for the go-to guy for wetworks.

They cheered to that and after they swallowed the sake he asked the bartender what he thought about the clue he found inside the helm.

Maybe the priestess has a clue.

Yeah I was afraid you might say that. She freaks me out.

Well, she deals in the occult and esoteric. I mean, this quest is as strange as one can get. So you gotta go to the queen of weird. She is kinda hot. If that’s your thing.

She’s the priestess of the eternal fire of the east. I dont wanna get my fingers burned.