L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab (13 page)

"Wh-what was that?" asked Yakamo, clutching his injured arm tightly to his body.

The shugenja laughed.
"That
was something to shake the nerves of battle-tested samurai."

As they entered the tower, it was too dark for Yakamo to see farther than fifteen feet in any direction—strange for midday even with an overcast sky. He couldn't see the ceiling. In fact, when he looked up Yakamo couldn't see anything other than an impenetrable inky veil that might go on forever.

Next to the door, wooden stairs were built into the wall. They led up into the darkness above. At a wave of Yori's hand, torches flared to life in sconces up and down the walls. The young Hida could now see that the structure was completely hollow. The stairs ran up to a platform about fifty feet above his head. Cages hung from hooks at various heights on the wall. Most of them were empty or held skeletons of misshapen creatures Yakamo could only guess had once been goblins. One cage very near the platform swayed back and forth slightly, and Yakamo thought he could see motion within. It seemed very likely the tortured creature had made the disturbing noises he had heard while approaching the tower.

In the center of the floor Yori had built a house. In fact, if it had been surrounded by maple trees and a rock garden, the small building would have been cozy, even peaceful. But sitting here at the center of a dimly lit, dank tower on the edge of the Crab lands, the building looked wrong—perhaps even malevolent.

Yori stepped up onto the raised wooden walkway that surrounded the house.

"Please wait out here, Hida-sama," he said to Yakamo as he slid open the shoji. "I will be only a moment, and you will be quite pleased with what I bring out."

Yori slipped off his sandals and backed into the house. The shugenja knelt, bowed, and slid the rice-paper door closed. The shoji was so thin that Yakamo could still make out Yori's shape as he rose and moved deeper into the home. He heard the shugenja open another set of shoji and begin rummaging around with heavy, wooden objects.

A pitiful whimper drifted down from the cage near the ceiling. Yakamo wondered if the creature was part of an experiment, was being tortured for information, or simply served as entertainment for Yori—and a warning to others.

The shoji behind him slid open again. Yakamo turned to see the shugenja sliding his feet back into his sandals. Yori was carrying a box about the correct length to hold a matching katana and wakizashi. However it was much too wide and heavy to be home to a simple dai-sho. The wood was so black that at first Yakamo thought it was ornamentally lacquered. As he looked closer, he could tell it was raw, unstained, gnarled wood with large ugly splinters sticking out on all sides.

"What is in there?" asked the samurai.

Yori just smiled.

"Soon enough, you will see," he said. "But I must discuss the contents with your father before I reveal them to you."

Yakamo was growing more and more frustrated with Yori's mysterious ways.

"Very well, then. Let's ride. We can be at the daimyo's camp by nightfall."

xxxxxxxx

"Why? Why didn't they let her kill him? At least there would have been
some
honor in that!" Pacing the tatami floor of his courtyard dais, Kisada seemed very much like his namesake—a great bear trapped in a cage. Kuni Yori knelt on a mat directly before the daimyo. Yakamo knelt off to the side, his forehead bowed to the ground.

"Tono."

The word literally meant "lord," but it had a familiar feel to it. Yori called Kisada that only when he wanted to make a personal point, to show his daimyo that he was more than just an advisor— he was a friend.

"Tono, your son was willing to give his life to defend not just his honor, but yours as well. He has not shamed himself or you in his loss—or his survival."

"Shame?" Kisada roared. "Of course he has brought us no shame!"

He stepped off the dais and into the gravel without donning any sandals and walked over to where Yakamo bowed in supplication.

"Yakamo—my firstborn, my chosen heir—Yori is correct. You have nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, you have had a grave wrong thrust upon you. It was your right to die in that contest, and they denied you the ending you deserved and were prepared for. If you died like the warrior you are, they gained nothing, but by leaving you this way the Dragon has cast doubt upon your spirit and your devotion. They insult the entire Crab Clan!"

Yakamo looked up, his eyes as dry as bones but somehow filled with passion.

"I will avenge myself upon them," he said so softly that Yori barely heard.

"I believe," the shugenja said, "that I may be of some help in that regard."

The two Hidas looked at him unconvinced.

"This is matter for the sword and the heart, Yori," said the Great Bear, "not magic and the brain."

"Yes," Yakamo agreed. "I must earn my revenge in glorious battle, not have it handed to me through a spell cast by my father's adviser."

"I have no intention of robbing you of your rightful and personal revenge," Yori said smiling. He clapped his hands twice, and two servants carried in the black box he'd retrieved from his tower. "I simply want to help make you capable of achieving it sooner."

The samurai stared at him in confusion.

"Mirumoto Hitomi stole from you the dominance and power that are your birthright. She made it so that your body can no longer keep pace with your warrior's heart. Within this box I have something that can reverse this setback—something that can make you even more powerful than you were before."

"What is it?" asked Yakamo. He had the look of a starving man staring at a pot of rice that was not quite at a boil.

"And what is the price of this power?" asked Kisada.

Yori answered neither question, but simply undid the latch on the black box and raised the lid. It was filled with straw, but the two samurai could see a large, black object below the topmost layer.

Kisada brushed aside the straw, stood back, and gasped.

"What is it?" Yakamo repeated.

They were looking at an ungainly contraption made of hinged metal, lacquered leather, and thick strands of silk. It looked very much like a giant crab claw covered in deadly spikes. The metal and leather were stained flat black, except along the hinges and the interior of the claw itself, which were plated with brass—presumably to make them operate more smoothly. At the back of the claw, the leather strips bore a passing resemblance to arm guards from a suit of heavy armor—clearly this
thing
was meant to be strapped to one's arm.

"If I am to wear a false arm, it will be that of a man—not an animal!" Yakamo said firmly and turned away.

"You misunderstand, Yakamo-sama," said Yori. "This is more than a decoration. With a few simple incantations it will respond to your thoughts just the way your natural limbs do. It will become a part of you—and more, it will become the most powerful part of your arsenal. This claw can crush tempered steel as easily as you snap a pair of chopsticks. A man with strong enough determination could draw on the claw to fill his entire body with more raw power than he could ever summon before."

Yakamo was transfixed.

Kisada was leery.

"Where did you get such a wondrous item?" he asked suspiciously.

Yori shrugged. "I removed it from one of the prisoners I examined about a year ago," he said. "Since then I have been testing its properties."

Yakamo's mind went back to the tower and the pitiful creature locked in the cage. He swallowed hard. Could this claw have been removed from that tortured beast? Or perhaps Yori "tested the properties" on that particular captive. None of these ideas bothered the young samurai in the abstract. After all, the Shadowlands were the enemy, and they would do worse things to any Crab they dragged back to their unholy dens. But the thought of actually wearing such a thing—taking it as a part of himself— gave him pause.

"A product of the Shadowlands?" the Great Bear roared. "You suggest that my son, heir to the Crab daimyo, should strap to his arm a device that looks like it came off an oni? That he should walk around for the rest of his days wearing a machine forged by our hated enemy?"

"I suggest," Yori said carefully, "that we use materials at hand to our best advantage. I suggest that it makes no difference who made the claw as long as your son uses it for the greater glory of the Crab Clan. I suggest that we have a way to take two terrible wrongs and turn them into a powerful weapon in our war to protect the empire."

"No!" Kisada loomed over Yori. The shugenja had to lean so far back to look in his daimyo's eyes that his hood fell off, revealing his painted face and thin eyes. "There are some lines that are not to be crossed, and attaching the arm of an enemy to my son is one of them. You know as well as 1 do that too much exposure to the Shadowlands can warp a man—taint him with the mark of corruption. If this happens from standing too close to the abyss, what do you think the result of wearing a slice of evil on your arm will be?"

"The taint is not a result of proximity to the Shadowlands," Yori answered calmly. This was a dangerous argument he could not afford to lose. "It is a sign that your heart and spirit have given in to the call of the Dark God. You know that, Tono. Are you saying your firstborn son doesn't have the character to remain true to himself and his heritage?"

"Of course I'm not saying that, and don't try to turn this argument around on me. The point is not the danger, the point is the principle."

"Father," Yakamo said, his voice cool and level. "The point is winning the war. If you do not allow Kuni Yori to attach this claw, I will never be able to walk into battle again. I will never be able to stand on the Wall and fight by your side. I will become just what my brother is—a great bundle of wasted potential."

"Tono, the Crab have lost one of our finest warriors," Yori agreed. "Only
you
are more respected by Uie soldiers on the Wall. It would be a great blow to morale if Yakamo-sama could never fight again—a blow that is rendered unnecessary by this device."

Yakamo looked his father square in the eye. "We have a chance to use the Shadowlands' own magic against them. You yourself always say to me, 'We must use every weapon within reach. We must take advantage of every opportunity. We must win at
any
cost, for if we fail, the empire falls.'

"Well, I have already paid the cost, Father," Yakamo said holding up the stump of his left arm. "Will we allow this opportunity to slip through what fingers I have left?"

Kisada lowered his eyes. "Yakamo, my son and my heir, is there no honor in accepting your karma and leading the clan through the force of your character? You have nothing left to prove."

"I have to prove that I am not a coward," Yakamo replied. "I have to prove that when confronted with opposition I will not back up and find some way around it. No, I will gather my strength and meet it head-on using every weapon at my disposal. I must prove that I am a Crab!"

The Great Bear turned his back to Yakamo and Yori and looked toward the sky. Where, he wondered, did honor and reason part company? Was every sensible answer wrong and the insane perversion of his son's flesh really the correct solution? No answers were written on the gray tableau above.

Finally Kisada turned around. He carried himself in his usual commanding demeanor, but somehow he looked melancholy.

"Very well," was all he said.

IMPERIAL DECREE

You're not nearly as offensive as your father or brother! In fact, I would say you're actually quite pleasant."

Hida Sukune turned to his right and stared blankly at the Unicorn Clan diplomat sitting there, smiling brightly.

"I was unaware that bald-faced insults were in fashion this season," he finally answered. It was the only thing he could think to do other than kill the man where he sat.

"I always thought that the Crab appreciated honesty above all else," the Unicorn said. "I was merely trying to accommodate your tastes."

The Unicorn Clan had spent many long centuries in the barbaric world beyond the Emerald Empire. Although they had returned to Rokugan two hundred years ago, they still occasionally had trouble in polite society. In fact, the Unicorn were considered by many to be even
more
uncultured than the Crab. After all,

the Crab might be rude, but at least they
knew
when they were breaking the rules.

"If you have nothing honest
and
nice to say, you should say nothing." In spite of himself, Sukune found he liked his neighbor. The man was obviously being sincere, and he had complimented the youngest Hida—in a backward sort of way. "How do you know my family?"

"It was my honor to meet both the daimyo and his son here in the Forbidden City about a year before Hantei the 38th was assassinated," the Unicorn said. "They both went on at length telling me what they thought of my clan's—how did they put it?—'two-century holiday." It seems they felt our efforts would have been better spent fighting the Shadowlands."

Sukune chuckled. "No doubt their opinions were bolstered by the emperor's sake."