The Heralds of the White God: 2
Title: The Heralds of the White God chapter 2 - Whispers and Rumors
Rating: M
Warnings: Violence, sexual content.
Spoilers: AU.
Summary: In which Syaoran finds rumor more palatable than truth, and Kurogane receives a summons he did not expect.
Author's notes: I know this was not the ideal place to cut the chapter, but I've been trying to keep my chapters a consistant length. If I'd gone on to include the next scene, the chapter would have been considerably longer than the others, and then the NEXT chapter would not have had a good stopping place. Don't worry, I still have plenty more to post -- I'll put the next chapter up when I come home from Christmas. Happy holidays everyone and happy new year!
The Wizards Of Ceres
Chapter I - Chapter II - Chapter III - Chapter IV
Chapter V - Chapter VI - Chapter VII - Chapter VIII
Chapter IX - Chapter X
The late afternoon sunlight burned down hot from overhead; the incessant spring rains had broken for a rare day of sunshine, but that only served to turn the city of Edo into a sauna as the sun steamed the water up from the ground. The crowd of teenage boys - young and hot-blooded and restless - had been eager to escape the week-long confinement that the rain had placed on them, even if the only avenue of escape was to a dusty, abandoned feed-lot in the middle of the city. As long as there was level open ground to spar on and overturned crates to serve as bleachers, it was enough of a stadium for them.
Shouts of excitement filled the air, punctuated by the resonant thwack of wooden bokken crashing against each other. Syaoran felt the eyes of the other boys on him, but he kept his gaze carefully trained on his opponent, circling warily on the dusty ground as they both searched for an opening. They were both panting, sweat rolling down their necks and chest in streams, but both refused to give an inch in the face of the other.
Ryuuo was grinning fiercely, reveling in the clash of sinews and strength; the other boy was a hothead who loved to fight for any reason, or just no reason at all. Syaoran was determined not to lose to him, certainly not today.
The deadlock was broken as Ryuuo lunged forward, his heavy wooden bokken swinging in swift, heavy arcs. Syaoran gave ground to his charge, feeling his footing carefully behind him and absorbing the blows in his stinging arms. Ryuuo was fierce, but also brash, and that made him careless. He was biding his time, watching for the opportunity that surely must come -- there!
Using a move that his sensei had shown him earlier that week -- which he had practiced last night until his arms were numb -- Syaoran thrust suddenly forward, locking his blade with Ryuuo's and twisting his wrists underneath the his opponent's overextended arms. Ryuuo stumbled slightly, his stance loosening as he overbalanced, and Syaoran heaved upwards in a motion that sent Ryuuo's bokken flying. There was a shout of alarm as one of the watchers had to scramble to avoid being struck by it, but Syaoran paid that no attention; he lunged forward, pressing his advantage, and soon had his wooden "blade" pressed flat against Ryuuo's throat.
"Touch!" he yelled out, and Ryuuo groaned as he conceded defeat.
"You're getting stronger every day, Syaoran," he grumbled as he went to retrieve his bokken; but there was a pleased note in his voice all the same. The best thing about Ryuuo was that as much as he loved to fight, he wasn't a sore loser; he saw every defeat as a chance to improve against a stronger improvement. "That was a pretty slick disarm at the end there."
Pleased, Syaoran's chest swelled with the compliment. "It's new," he said. "I worked hard to get it right."
Now that the match was over, the other boys began crowding in close. Akira came over and handed Ryuuo back his bokken, followed closely by Suoh. "Where'd you learn that new move, Syaoran?" he asked. "Army training up on the front?"
"No." Syaoran frowned briefly, recollections of the frustrating weeks of marching with the army unit flitting through his mind. Day after day of boring, unrelenting chores and toil, never so much as seeing an enemies face; and then, just before they would have come onto the battlefield at last, the wizards had abruptly withdrawn, leaving nothing but empty outposts and scorched fields behind them.
He shook his head, as if to clear them of the memories, and focused on better things. "Sensei showed it to me yesterday. Since he's he's home all the time now, I'm improving faster than ever."
"Ah, well, with Kurogane Demon-Queller as your teacher, that's to be expected," the other boy, Yamazaki, nodded wisely.
"Sensei is a great man," Syaoran said with pride. "And he's teaching me to be a great swordsman too. He's a demon-hunter, you know."
Suoh gave a small 'hmph.' "Demon-hunter," he said. "You should hear what they're saying about him in town. They're calling him 'Kurogane Wizard-Lover.' "
Syaoran's temper flashed, fury briefly turning his vision red, and he tackled the other boy, the others quickly getting out of the way as they tumbled and tussled in the dirt. Although Suoh was no slouch in hand-to-hand himself, Syaoran had the initiative, and quickly pinned him to the dirt with one first raised warningly. "You take that back!" he shouted. "Don't say such filthy things about my master!"
"All right, all right already!" an annoyed Suoh exclaimed. "I didn't say that I was saying it, okay? I just said that some people were."
"Well, all right," Syaoran said, loosing his hold and climbing to his feet, holding out a hand to help Suoh stand up. "Just don't say it around me any more. It's not true. Sensei is a great man, he's not a traitor or a pervert."
"Wizards are all perverts anyway," Ryuuo said in a superior tone. "You'd have to be, to want to be one, anyway. What kind of man would want to take on a women's role? Ugh!"
"Well, you know," Yamazaki said with a sly smile, "Some of the wizards aren't men… or at least, they aren't just men. They're women, too."
A snicker ran through the assembled boys, except for Akira, whose brows wrinkled in puzzlement. "Huh?" he asked in genuine bewilderment. Then his eyes widened and he gasped. "Do you mean, they have man wizards and lady wizards working together?"
Suoh groaned, and Syaoran rolled his eyes. Akira was included in their group because he was Suoh's neighbor and childhood playmate, but he was several years younger than the rest of them, and sometimes it showed. He was also a very sweet boy who always wanted to think the best of everybody, but as far as Syaoran was concerned, some people didn't deserve the consideration.
"No, that wasn't what he meant," Suoh said, grabbing Akira in a headlock, which the smaller boy struggled to escape. "He means that they're unnatural, they have a penis and boobs. Get it now?"
"They're unnatural in any case," Syaoran said, frowning darkly as he absently rubbed the side of his face. "They distort everything they touch. They're a blight on the land."
Akira wiggled free of his friend's grasp, and straightened his tunic with a huff. "They can't all be that bad," he objected, looking from face to face for support. "They did help us when the demons attacked the southern wall. After all that happened, even though our countries were at war -- they did come to help us."
There was silence in the small dusty lot, simmering with resentment as the boys avoided meeting Akira's eyes. They knew as well as he did the tale they'd heard about the battle at the southern breach -- the armada of demons that threatened to overflow Nihon's defenses, that would have ravaged the land and murdered countless people. And they'd heard about the army of wizards that had appeared -- some said miraculously -- to stem the tide with powerful shields and blast the demons into oblivion. They'd all heard it, but it was a hard pill for them to swallow, too hard to put aside their carefully-crafted hatred in favor of understanding.
"Akira, you're so gullible," Ryuuo scoffed. "You'll believe anything anyone tells you, you'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt. I bet you the demons and the wizards were in on it from the start. We wouldn't even have needed help defending the southern wall if they hadn't cowardly attacked us in the first place! And who created the demons in the first place, huh? A wizard! I'm telling you, it was all part of the same plot!"
The boys nodded agreement with Ryuuo's logic, relieved to be presented with something that made sense. Only Akira looked dubious. "That can't be true," Akira protested. "They're good people too, my uncle said so. He was there! He said they were very brace."
"All they really wanted was to drive us out of the northern territories so they could steal them for themselves," Suoh said with cynical bitterness. "My mother's cousins have to stay with us in the city now, because they have no place to live. If Ceres wasn't evil, they would just sign a peace treaty and give us back our lands already. But they never will. Damn Ceres and all its wizards, anyway!"
"Did you know," Yamazaki spoke up suddenly, his tone suspiciously bright. "That the first Ceresians hatched out of stones?"
The other four boys looked over at Yamazaki, with various degrees of curiosity and wariness. They'd all learned (well, maybe not Akira,) that when Yamazaki started a sentence with "Did you know…" it was going to be another whopper. But the topic was promising; they were always eager to hear more nasty facts about Ceres. "Out of stones?" Syaoran asked, encouraging him to go on.
Yamazaki nodded knowingly, beaming around at the circle of faces. "Yes, out of stones, round stones just like eggs," he said. "You won't find stones like that around here, of course, they can only be found in the deepest darkest caves in the Windhome mountains. Anyway, the Ceresians hatched out of stones, just like lizards hatch out of eggs, and that's why they're so pale and slimy. They were naked, too, of course. They didn't have any silk or cotton up in the mountains."
One of the boys laughed at the vision Yamazaki was painting, but another one shushed up. Yamazaki kept talking. "Anyway, they were all very cold and hungry," he said, "so they started killing and eating the sheep that lived around the mountains. They had to eat them with their bare hands, because they didn't have any wood to make chopsticks. And because they were very hungry, they ate every part of the sheep, the wool and horns and hooves and guts and eyeballs and everything --"
Ryuuo made a gagging noise, and even Akira wrinkled his nose at the thought of eating such a disgusting thing. Yamazaki continued, warming to his tale.
"Then one day, one very clever, very bright Ceresian had an idea. The sheep were warm because they had wool! What if people could wear wool, just like animals did? So he killed a sheep, but instead of eating up the whole sheep, he pulled off the wooly skin and put it on. It was amazing how much warmer he felt! He ran back to the cave to tell his friends and family about his great idea.
" 'Look at me, look at me!' he shouted as he ran up to the cave. All his friends and family came out to see what the commotion was. 'Oh, it's a talking sheep,' they said. And because they thought he was a sheep, they killed him. And then they ate him all up."
"Ewwww!" The chorus of disgust was everything Yamazaki could have hoped for, and he smiled in delight as the boys recoiled. "They eat people? That's disgusting!"
"It's true, though," Suoh put in. "They do eat people. My cousins used to do some trading with Ceresians on the other side of the border, so they know. They even have a recipe for it -- it's called 'Baby tail soup.' "
"And I'm sure it's not just Ceres babies that they eat!" Ryuuo said heatedly. "They're voracious! There are entire families like yours, Suoh, that never made it back from the north even after they were evacuated. I'll bet you anything the Ceresians killed and ate them up."
"Baby tail soup?" Akira repeated in puzzlement, looking from Suoh to Yamazaki. "Is this one your fake stories again? Babies don't have tails."
"Well, maybe Ceres babies do," Suoh said, shrugging. "After all, they're not really human, are they?"
There was a moment of silence; nobody quite dared to say anything after that. The silence was broken by Syaoran.
"I don't care what they are," he said, looking north across the street, across the endless low rooftops of the city. Away in the distance stretched the line of the Windhome mountains, capped by icy white even as summer came on them. He remembered the icy chill of those mountain passes, and what he'd lost there. "Or what they do or don't eat. I only care what they've done. Wizards lie -- they cheat and they kill. The whole world will be better off when they're all dead."
-------------------------
Over the next few weeks Kurogane slowly relaxed back into the routine of life in Edo. It was a relief to rest at last, finally heal from the injuries he'd been neglecting for a long time and be free of the bone-grinding fatigue. At the same time, the long period of inactivity was strange and uncomfortable -- normally he only stayed in his home for a few days at a time, a week at most before he was back on patrol. Once the doctors had declared him back at full strength, he had nothing to do but bide his time; practice calligraphy in his drawing room, train his student, and check twice an hour for messengers from the palace. And wait.
He'd told Tomoyo everything they knew, or suspected, or guessed about Seishirou's mysterious master. There was some hope that with the traitor Kyle Rondart dead, Tomoyo's dreams would at last become clear enough to show her the face of the enemy. She had cautioned him to patience, saying that the visions could not be rushed or coerced, but had to come in their own time. He knew it to be true, but still he paced and fumed and fretted, and evolved a hundred different plans to go out and start searching. If only he weren't tied here. If only he and Fai had stayed out in the wilds, never returned to their own countries…
The summons he'd been expecting came at last, three weeks after his return from the southern border; and they came not from Tomoyo, but from Amaterasu.
"Your Divine Majesty?" Kurogane asked somewhat warily as he entered the small chamber. Not a formal audience, the full ritual of kowtows and submission were not necessary; but even in a private meeting such as this one the Empress was never completely alone, surrounded by her personal servants and most loyal bodyguards. "You sent… for me?"
"Yes." Amaterasu frowned at him; he returned her gaze levelly. She broke off first, and dropped her frown to a packet of papers sitting on the low table beside her hand. "We received the latest missive from Ceres this morning. For a change, they actually seem to have delivered it with some urgency."
Kurogane came alert; news from Ceres? And what reason would she have to call him in on it, if not… "Oh?" he said, and cleared his throat to maintain a casual tone. "Anything of interest?"
"Yes, in fact." The frown returned to him, and strengthened. "There is a letter here written in King Ashura's hand, marked with his personal seal. It is politely, although I'd say strongly worded, and it is the first time he has made anything remotely approaching a request; up till now all their letters have been anonymous and vague. In short, you, Kurogane Lord of Suwa, are invited and requested to attend court in Ceres at your earliest possible convenience."
Kurogane was silent for a moment, conflicted feelings of hope and resentment, loss and confusion battling within him. "You say… The letter was sent by Ashura? Not by… anyone else?"
"He sent along a signature which my sister says is magical in nature, verifying his identity, and a letter of assignation requiring that all parties from the Ceres border on inwards give you passage with all possible speed. There were no other names listed; you would probably know as well as I would what that signifies. Now," she added in a slightly sterner voice, "Up until now no nihonjin -- not even Touya -- has been permitted to step beyond their borders. Now we get a letter from the King of Ceres himself practically ordering you to come. You're not exactly the most polished diplomat; I can't imagine that you impressed him so highly on your last visit. Do you have any guess as to why the King of Ceres wants to see you so badly?"
"Yes," he said.
She waited, then growled under her breath, "Like what? I'm not in the mood to play games with you, Demon-hunter."
"Guesses are all I have," Kurogane snapped back. "Maybe he wants me because I've been to the court at Ceres before, and I'm at least familiar enemy. Maybe it's because I fought the Master of Demons earlier this spring. Maybe it's something else entirely. I can't carry the responsibility for anyone else's decisions or motivations."
Amaterasu sank back in her padded chair with a grimace, and made a tired gesture of her hand to let the topic of discussion pass.
After a beat, Kurogane asked, "Do I have leave to go, then? To Ceres?"
"Yes, of course you do. It's not like we have the option of refusing them," she added, bitterness in her tone that had become all too common to her lately. "You'll leave tomorrow at first light. I'm sure I don't need to impress on you the need for haste."
"I'd be able to get there a lot faster if you hadn't destroyed this end of the portal," Kurogane couldn't resist pointing out with asperity. "This whole negotiation process would be much further along by now."
"Don't be a fool! It was far too dangerous for that… thing to exist," Kendappa exclaimed. "To think that it was in our capital, under our very nose, for all these years…! We could have woken up at any time to find an army of Ceres barbarians standing over our beds. Of course it was destroyed! If my idiot brother hadn't -- "
She bit off her words, eyes flashing, mouth compressed in a tight line. Kurogane was almost surprised by her self-restraint, refusing to vent a grievance about the divine family even in such close company.
All the members of the Imperial bloodline were sacrosanct, set apart by their descent from the Sun Goddess. While conflict between individuals and even different branches of the family did exist -- Kendappa herself would never have come to power without such an internecine dispute -- the divine family nonetheless drew together against outsiders, and it was highly unusual for one of the royalty to openly criticize another. That she would do so even about Touya, a younger half-brother, spoke volumes about the depth of the rift the subject of the portal had driven between them.
Still, while he understood the strategic justification, he couldn't help but resent the destruction of the artifact. Not only because it would have made his own job much easier, but because he had at least enough understanding of magic to have a glimmering of just how old, and rare, and valuable an artifact it had been, how senselessly wasteful its destruction.
"None of this matters now," Kendappa said, regaining her composure. "Go to Ceres, Demon-Queller. Perhaps you can make a crack in this stalemate we've been locked in for months. Perhaps you can persuade some of the Ceresians to our cause, help them understand our ways better."
Privately, Kurogane thought that there were already many Ceresians who understood Nihon and their ways all too well. It was getting Nihon to understand Ceres in turn that was going to be the difficult part. "Yes, Divine One," he answered.
"See if you can secure a clear and lasting treaty," Amaterasu went on. "Gods know you're not our first choice of an ambassador, but you seem to be all we've got. Try to win as many concessions as you can. And maybe… if you see a chance, any chance for a clear advantage for Nihon…" She let the words trail off hopefully.
Kurogane's eye twitched, and he stood with his back as rigid as a board. "Empress," he said abruptly. "I challenged Ashura to a dual once. I lost completely. I cannot defeat him in even combat, and I don't intend to jeopardize my visit by trying. And I will not consider any less honorable approach. I will go to Ceres, but not as a spy, and not as an assassin. Do not insult me again by implying it."
Amaterasu stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged slightly, glancing aside. The Empress would never consider apologizing to a servant, but her acceptance of his refusal was a tacit apology. "Perhaps," she said somewhat indirectly, "I do understand why he asked for you."
-------------------------
Doorways in Nihon were often a trial to Kurogane's towering inches, but the doorway of the cha-no-yuu was deliberately too small, set low in the wall so that everyone -- peasant or warrior or great noble -- would have to get down on hands and knees, entering the tea-house in humility.
Tomoyo was waiting for him inside, alone; Kurogane could sense the aura of her attendants nearby, beyond the paper-thin walls of the teahouse. But in this small, sacred space, they were alone. He took a moment to face the altar, and meditate on the austere, elegant arrangement of flowers, the delicate brush-strokes of the kanji scroll that had been scripted for the ceremony. He had some knowledge of both arts, of course, all samurai did; but he'd never had much interest in them, his hands always being more apt to hold a sword than a pen. Still, he could sense the beauty and care that had gone into the arrangement, and appreciate it.
He took a seat seiza across from Tomoyo, not speaking. She raised her arms, tiny white hands almost hidden behind the trailing screen her her kimono's sleeves, and began to prepare the tea. Her face was lowered as she contemplated her task, the bamboo whisk briskly stirring the powder into a frothy liquid; her face was serene, unreadable. He wondered why she had chosen to invite him to a tea ceremony here tonight, on the eve of his departure.
At last she finished mixing the tea, and lifted the bowl in both hands, holding it towards him. He stretched out an arm and took it, and his fingers brushed against hers in the process; in that moment, she could have spoken so that he could here, but she did not. He chose not to speak either, instead concentrating on the ritual. He looked at the cup in his hands, turning the smooth ceramic around in his palms so that he could see the design. He did not recognize the maker, though he recognized the quality of the workmanship, admired the subtle and understated beauty of the glaze, the simple asymmetrical design that stood out in sharp contrast against the blank surface of the ceramic. The cha-no-yuu was a place to stop and notice the details, appreciate them; it was not a place where impatience, or foreboding about the future, was welcome. Keeping that thought firmly planted in his mind, he took a sip of the tea, allowing the bitter taste to fill his mouth.
A small wooden tray of bean-paste sweets had been set out before him, three small cakes arranged neatly; properly, he took one and nibbled on it before he took his first sip of tea. He didn't much care for the cloying sweetness of the sweet, but that wasn't the point. Neither the strong, astringent tea nor the sticky-sweet bean cakes were meant to stand on their own; it was the combination of the two that brought harmony, a tempering and appreciation of both. He sipped his tea again, and tried hard to push away thoughts of Fai. They did not belong here, in the center of this symbolic ritual.
Once he had taken the third sip, he placed the cup firmly to the tatami before him, and looked around. This time he noted the kanji that had been chosen for the scrolls; homeland was brushed deliberately onto one, and long memory onto the others.
With that, he thought he understood Tomoyo's purpose in bringing him here, honoring him with this ceremony tonight. Unlike her sister, she would never insult him by suggesting he was disloyal; instead, she wanted to remind him of who he was, and where he had come from. This ceremony tonight was meant to reinforce that no matter how far he traveled from his home soil, and whatever else he might encounter in countries far from home, he would never break with the roots from which he had sprung. And because it was subtle, and artful, and meant with all her kindness, he took the lesson to heart, absorbing it deep within himself to use as a source of strength in later, dire hours.
"Tsukuyomi," he started to said, breaking the silence of the cha-no-yuu for the first time. Then he changed his mind. "Tomoyo, there's no need to worry. I've been away much further from home than this before, and I'll be home within a couple of weeks."
Tomoyo glanced up at him then, meeting his gaze for the first time, and the deep violet of her eyes was unfathomably and sad. "No, dear Kurogane," she said, her voice barely a whisper, and Kurogane started; he was not touching her hand, and he knew it took her enormous effort to make herself heard without that contact. "I believe we will not see each other again for a very long time."
His mouth went dry. "Have you -- have you had a dream then?" he asked in a hushed voice. "Is there a warning? Should I not go?"
She shook her head, her hair a shining curtain around her face; she did stretch out her hand then, and he gladly took it, enclosing her pale, cold fingers in his own. "My visions are returning, but slowly," she said. "And yet I think that we dare not wait for them to become any more clear. A path is opening before you, Kurogane, a path that leads away from here and does not return. I sense great danger if you go down this road; but at the same time, if you do not, the danger becomes not only for you, but for the entire world."
"Danger?" Kurogane's spine jolted upright, and he stared at her in alarm. "What kind of danger? Is it demons, or -- do you fear treachery from the king of Ceres?" Not treachery from Fai, nor even from Ceres in general, no; but from Ashura, that snake of a man, he would be a fool not to suspect it.
"I do not know what it is that I fear," Tomoyo's voice whispered in his mind, and he saw her eyes glisten with sadness as her fingers curled tightly around his own. "The danger is great, but you can overcome it, You-ou, my dearest friend. Would that I could arm you with sure knowledge, but I have none; only the certainty that if you do not go, then all that we've worked for -- in every corner of this country -- will be lost. You will go north, but I do not know if you will ever return; I only wish that you will keep us -- and me -- in your heart, that I may aid you in spirit when you come to the end of that road."
-------------------------
Syaoran shifted his weight from foot to foot, hovering indecisively in the hallway outside of his teacher's room. Before he'd gone to the palace, Kurogane had been alternately pacing and brooding, snapping in response to every comment. Now he was packing. It didn't take a genius to make the connection between the two. "Um…" he called out hesitantly. "Sensei?"
"What is it?" was all the response Kurogane offered, intent on throwing clothes and personal effects into his packs with great energy. "Don't hang around in the hallway. Come in if you're going to."
"Are you really going… up there?" Syaoran was torn with conflicting feelings. He had nothing but respect and affection for his teacher, but… Suoh's remarks from earlier still stung a little bit, especially seeing his teacher so enthusiastically preparing to head off into enemy territory. "To Ceres again?"
"Yeah. Empress ordered me to go. I've been asked to go help negotiate a treaty," Kurogane said brusquely.
Syaoran took a deep breath and plunged forward. "Sensei, let me come with you," he begged. "You can’t go alone into that -- that den of villains without even one person to defend you in case of a fight."
"I've been there before," Kurogane pointed out, tugging the leather straps on his saddlebags closed and standing to sling it against the wall, then turning to the next one. "And I'm more than capable of taking care of myself in any fights. I don't need you tagging along for that."
"But you don't understand what those people are like," Syaoran said earnestly. "I've heard awful stories about what the white witches of the north do to people. Ryuuo said he heard of cases where Nihon families who lived up were captured, but instead of being evicted, they were killed, and cooked and eaten!"
"Ryuuo should make a living telling grandmother stories to little kids to get them to behave for their mothers," Kurogane growled. "You're sixteen. You've got a working brain. I shouldn't even have to tell you how stupid that is."
Syaoran felt his cheeks heat, and he dropped his head to stare at the floor. When called on it, he had to admit it sounded pretty stupid. "I didn't really believe it either," he mumbled. "Ryuuo is -- well -- sometimes he doesn't think about all of the things he says --"
Kurogane snorted and rolled his eyes. He never said much about it -- he always took a back seat to Syaoran's friendships -- but Syaoran nevertheless got the distinct feeling that his master didn't think much of the other boy.
"--but that doesn't mean you should be alone," Syaoran said earnestly. "This isn't like fighting demons, where I'd just be a liability. I want to come with you, so that you don't have to be the only one of your kind, so that you'll have someone you can trust along to help you and watch your back."
"Hell n --" Kurogane frowned, pausing in his packing as he stared intently at Syaoran. His eyes narrowed, looking Syaoran up and down, evaluating him, and the boy waited with bated breath.
His arguments were sincere, but at the same time, they were only part of the reason. Syaoran was filled revulsion at the thought of meeting the wizards on their own home territory -- but at the same time, he itched for an opportunity to get close enough to settle the score for his father's murder. In his march north with the army earlier that season he hadn't gotten close enough to see even one enemy face. Now the war was over, and no one was allowed into Ceres, and unless he did something -- somehow -- he might never get the chance to --
"All right," Kurogane conceded suddenly, looking almost as surprised at his own change of heart as Syaoran felt. "Come along. Maybe you'll learn something useful. But move your ass -- I want to be on the road in an hour."
Syaoran's face lit up, and he dashed out into the hallway yelling, "Hold on! I'll get my stuff. I promise I won't make you wait for me, Sensei! You won't regret this!"
"I hope not," his teacher muttered, almost inaudible in the room behind him.
-------------------------
Well, Kurogane thought, philosophically trying to find the bright side in every situation; at least it had stopped raining.
He stared out over the long broad slope of the valley below, feeling the same fascination and vertigo as the first time he'd climbed the high mountain passes to Ruval. It had been six months since then, three months since the end of the war. One month since Tomoyo had declared the southern wall rebuilt enough to hold out the lurking demons of the wilderness beyond, and he'd finally been able to come home. Six months since he'd last come this way to Ceres, since that last journey, and many things had changed; he came now in summer instead of winter, in peace instead of war.
But the view was still stunning.
The ravages of the spring invasion that had driven its way up the valley to the very foot of the pass could still be seen, in places, a black scar on the bones of the rolling foothills. Time and peace and change of seasons was beginning to heal it, a thick mat of green plant life covering the smoked and burning fields, and orderly rows of tends and temporary buildings spreading tentatively over the ruins of razed villages. But the scars still remained, underneath.
Despite the elevation of the valley and the relatively early season, the crops were growing thick and heady in the fields -- if anything, they were further developed than the corn and rice and oat fields cultivated down in Nihon. As they'd passed along the packed-earth road that led between verdant fields, Kurogane thought he'd caught the tingling scent of magic. When he'd parted ways with Fai, his nascent magical education had been abruptly cut short; but there was little difficulty in understanding what was going on here. Ceres was impatient to harvest the bounty of its newly conquered farmland, to feed the hungry people crowded into the stone channels above.
They were nearing the end of the valley, the sheer rock wall that marked the final stand of the wizards of Ceres against the Nihon army. As the panorama opened out to the plains at the foot of the mountains, he could see the roiling rainclouds beginning to scurry under the stiff wind. It was the rainy season in Nihon right now; the endless weary days of warm sticky rain that always afflicted the plains during the early summer. It was a relief to be away from the humid, sweltering heat, up in the clear, crisp air above the clouds.
He'd expected to see busy construction at the villages they passed through, to hear the now-familiar scrape of stone and mortar and see work gangs trundling stone blocks along the roads. Buildings in Ceres were mostly made of stone, after all; and most of the buildings had been at least partly destroyed by the Nihon advance. If they were going to be habitable by winter, he'd have thought they'd be building again already.
Instead, the place was oddly quiet and subdued; the place had an oddly transient feel, not only in the conquered provinces but even up into the original Ceres valley. They passed through clusters of habitations spaced evenly through the fields where the only dwellings were thick canvas tents, their unbleached wool awnings flapping in the steady breeze drawn down the valley. Although the tent camps were cluttered with tools and equipment, and he saw both men and women going about various chores, they were as transient as the peasant laborers who'd built the wall in southern Nihon. They were workers, not residents.
But one person was not in the least bit pleased by all this evidence of productivity. Syaoran glowered around at the fields of waving green stalks, at the distant figures of laboring farmhands. "Look at them, acting like they own this place," he muttered angrily. "They sure didn't waste any time setting up shop."
"They wouldn't." Kurogane turned his head to watch the billowing rippled spread over the green grass. "This was what they fought for, after all."
"So what was all this for?" Syaoran demanded, outrage flaring up in his eyes. "All those people in Esui and Sabae and Naoetsu dead, the Esui miko murdered in her own shrine, and for what? For a few acres of, of grass?"
"All that we have comes from the land," Kurogane replied. "Gold is just a way of keeping count that's easier to carry, but it's the land that provides the wealth. When you get to the root of it, that's what all wars come down to."
"That doesn't give them the right to attack us, kill our people and steal our homes, just because they want what we have," Syaoran persisted.
Kurogane was silent, not sure how to get Syaoran to open his mind -- or his heart -- to the enormity of the suffering that Ceres had experienced. Somewhere not too far from here was the rocky ledge where he and Fai had argued; Fai had accused him of never knowing a day's hunger and indeed, although he had known other hardships, he'd always been provided for.
It had taken him a long time, during his visit in Ceres, to wrap his mind around the idea of true famine. So many of the customs and etiquette of Ceres -- which he'd never had much grace or patience for -- revolved around the concepts of preventing waste and the mutual obligations of hospitality. Ceres had been a hungry land for a long time. Perhaps it wasn't surprising that they would choose crops over buildings.
"When we first met," he said at last, falling back on familiar, shared experiences. "In Hokugawa. I was just returning from a patrol through the Rising Sun Gate, and you were in the neighborhood there. You were living on the street. You hadn't eaten in three days."
Syaoran's face flushed, both at the reminder of the painful memory and at the comparison Kurogane was drawing. "It's not the same," he objected hotly. "I never stole. I would never have attacked or hurt someone else just to benefit myself!"
"You didn't stoop to stealing, no," Kurogane agreed, but then went on harshly, "but you were picking through other people's trash to find something to eat. When you don't have enough to live on, other considerations, other morals and ideals don't seem so important any more. You should remember enough to understand that, at least."
Syaoran fell silent, momentarily crushed. Kurogane regretted bringing up such unpleasant memories, but Syaoran couldn't be allowed to bull around at court at Ruval with his head in the clouds.
"But still," Syaoran resumed a resentful grumble. "It's not all right to make other people suffer, just because you are. If they didn't have enough land to grow food, then they should have found some other way to make it last. It's irresponsible, overbreeding like that, spilling over onto other people's lands. Maybe if they stopped having so many babies, they wouldn't have too many people for their land."
Kurogane sighed, bringing his hand up to press against his throbbing forehead. "Do me a favor, kid," he said. "Don't say shit like that when we get to the court at Ceres. Remember that we're guests there, and not only that, we're the first ambassadors who have been allowed past the border since the war ended. If you really want to keep more people from getting hurt and dying, remember that we're here to keep the peace. It's not the right place for teenage posturing, so keep it in your pants, or I'll knock you stupid. You hear?"
"All right, Sensei," Syaoran submitted obediently, but glancing back once more at him, Kurogane saw the doubt etched clearly on his face; so why did you bring me with you, anyway?
Turning away from the last sight of the green valley and his home, fixing his eyes on the cold stony slopes ahead, Kurogane wondered that very same question himself. It had been a last-minute impulse to bring Syaoran with him, and he wondered how the Ceresians were going to react. Relations between the two countries were still strained; there still wasn't anything that could lastingly be called peace. He still wasn't entirely sure why he'd been allowed across the sealed border, but he suspected there was more to it than diplomatic politics.
Syaoran was neither hunter, nor diplomat nor courtier; he was only a boy, not even born as nihonjin, but a fierce and fervent adopted patriot. He was hotheaded and zealous, stubbornly set in his beliefs, and he was convinced that Ceres and all its people were wicked, hateful villains, who'd attacked Nihon unjustly and cheated their way to an unfair victory. In that, he was not so different from the strong sentiment of the people of Nihon themselves -- humiliated by their defeat at Ceres' hands, resentful of the territory they'd been forced to cede, and not at all in the mood to build a lasting peace.
He couldn't change the minds of everyone in Nihon, couldn't force compassion or empathy into stubborn-set minds or convince them to bend gracefully under defeat. He was not a great leader of men, and it would take a miracle to reverse the momentum of long-standing intolerance and simmering hatred. But that didn't mean that Kurogane was allowed not to try.
He was Syaoran's teacher, his mentor, and he knew the boy respected and submitted to him. No one else was in a position to try to broaden his mind, bring him around to another point of view; and it would never happen without giving Syaoran an opportunity to know his enemy. He didn't know yet how long he'd be remaining in Ceres, but there had to be time in there to show Syaoran around, introduce him to the beauty and wonder that this strange country had to offer, convince him that the people of Ceres were humans too.
And if he couldn't even crack open Syaoran's heart far enough to see that, then maybe he had no business being anybody's teacher anyway.
~to be continued...
Notes: The persistent rumors of cannibalism surrounding the mountain kingdoms of Ceres and Valeria no doubt owe themselves in part to the madness of the last King of Valeria, before it was conquered by Ceres. However, in this particular case it's a simple case of mistranslation. The folk recipe in question is actually "lizard tail stew," made from a large rock-dwelling lizard that's local to the Windhome mountains, the komodo lizard. Unfortunately, the name for this animal sounds very similar to kodomo, the Nihongo word for "child." Hence the confusion.