L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab (32 page)

The focus of the entire space was a raised square dais about seven feet on a side. The dais had rice paper walls erected around it and a single set of shoji allowing entrance. The ostentatious audience room was for the emperor's guests, but the pure and austere room upon the dais was for the emperor himself. Only the most honored and respected guests were ever invited onto the tatami where thirty-nine generations of Hantei had sat upon the Emerald Throne— the very symbol of the empire.

The audience chamber was dark as Kisada and Yakamo entered. Flickering light filtered through the slanted wooden window screens. It danced on the solid gold braziers, glinted off the gold foil and precious stones set into the murals, and caressed the audience chamber like a lover returned from war. It did not, however, touch the central dais at all.

"That is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen."

As artful as the room was, Yakamo referred to the view from the window on the west wall.

Kisada looked to his left, to the very window where nearly three years ago the Lady Scorpion urged him toward this day. The fires of battle lit the skyline of Otosan Uchi. Several buildings in the poorer districts still burned, though none of the blazes seemed out of control. The firelight showed that the Lion army and imperial guard still fought their losing battle against the Crab and Shadowlands forces. In the flickering light, even Kisada's own samurai seemed monstrous and deformed. They looked more like a force of invaders than an army of liberators.

"It is nothing compared to the beauty you will see when our enemy's head adorns the gate of the Forbidden City," the Great Bear growled. Then he shouted, "This is the end, Hantei! I will spill your thin, weak blood across the throne your family has held for too long. Rokugan will have the strong leader it has desperately needed for so long."

The Crab daimyo stomped loudly as he approached the dais. He swung his tetsubo in lazy circles, not for any military purpose but just to fill the otherwise silent room with quiet swooshes that would unnerve anyone trying desperately
not
to become the weapon's target. Kisada wanted the cowardly emperor to
know
the Great Bear was coming for him.

Yakamo followed his father and matched him move for move. His left hand itched, a sensation he hadn't felt since his battle with Mirumoto Hitomi. There was an energy in the air—something raw that made the hair on his arms stand up.

This must be what it feels like to reach your karma.

"Come out, little emperor, and I will make your death painless, which is more than you deserve." The Great Bear stalked

behind the dais and thrust his tetsubo through one of the shoji. It struck nothing.

Sounds filtered through the window-—the clash of steel on steel, the howl of dying men, and the rumble of beasts feasting on human flesh.

"Do you hear that, little emperor?" Kisada teased. "That is the sound of the death of your family. That is the dirge for the Hantei. Isn't it beautiful?"

Yakamo seemed on the verge of adding his own taunts, but something prevented his lips from moving.

The Great Bear prowled back to the center of the audience chamber. The wretched Hantei still remained silent. Was it possible that hunger had gotten to the emperor before Kisada did? Was Hantei the 39th simply lying on the floor of his tatami dais waiting for death to come?

No. The throne—the malnourished whelp must quite literally be slumped in his seat of power, too weak even to whimper in his own defense.

The Great Bear stepped up to the emperor's dais, pulled the doors wide, and gazed into the darkness.

Two glowing red eyes looked back.

The flickering light barely penetrated the dais. It glinted weakly off the Emerald Throne where Kisada could barely make out the Hantei's fragile body sitting calmly. The emperor's eyes, though, glowed like hot coals.

"Things are not always what they seem, Kisada-san, but you should be used to that by now." The voice belonged to the young emperor, but it was rougher than Kisada had ever heard before, as though he had been praying over heavy incense all day. The words reverberated in the audience chamber, a rumbling echo that lasted too long.

"What do you mean?" asked Kisada. Then with a confidence he no longer felt he added, "Tell me quickly. My urge to kill you is far stronger than my curiosity."

"The Shadowlands are your most hated enemy, and yet they are your most faithful allies," whispered the emperor. The sound filled the room. What's more, he seemed to be laughing at the same time. "Your most sacred duty is to guard the borders of the empire, yet you've spent the last year fighting battle after battle against Rokugani citizens. Your sons are the most important part of your life, yet you killed one and allowed the other to be turned into a monstrous freak. Your most trusted adviser uses magic so black that his own body rejects him, yet you keep him close to your bosom."

Hantei stood and stepped into the light cast by the burning capital. He was still a slight, sickly bodied young man, but his entire frame brimmed with power. In his hands, he held a sheathed sword—the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei—and Kisada could tell he knew how to use it.

The emperor continued in a hypnotic voice, "Things are not what they seem—
you
are not what you seem."

The Great Bear laughed. "I am exactly what 1 seem. I am the man who is about to kill the last Hantei!"

Yakamo stood rooted to the ground, immobile and turnedand then completely silent. The itching in his arm turned to a dull ache.

"The last Hantei is already dead," said the emperor. "I killed him!"

The boy was mad. Kisada considered whether this made him more or less of a threat. "And who are you?" he asked, stretching his arm and tetsubo back behind his left ear.

The emperor's eyes flashed fire.

"I am Fu Leng!"

A thunderous retort filled the air and flames shot high into the night sky as one of the burning buildings collapsed under its own weight. The fire was spreading.

"The Dark God seated on the Emerald Throne?"

"Who better? You?" Fu Leng laughed. "Little Crab, you cannot even remain true to your little clan. How could you possibly rule an empire? You built your life, your world around one duty, one precept—and a simple one at that—to protect the borders of Rokugan from evil. What did you do? For the sake of your own personal power you turned your back on everything that gave your life meaning."

The Great Bear fell as silent as his son.

"At least I am true to myself—I
am
evil! You threw away your duty, honor, and family for the sake of avarice. Very soon your greed will cost you your life as well."

Kisada raised his hand to object, but his conscience would not let him. He thought back to every compromise he had made: his decision not to kill the oni; his permission for Yakamo to give his name to that same creature; his abandonment of the Great Kaiu Wall—his Wall; his march arm-in-arm with his most hated enemy to overthrow the ruler of the Emerald Empire. He listened to Kuni Yori, he listened to the Lady Scorpion, he even listened to a demon, but never once did he listen to his youngest son—to his own heart.

Now this truly was his karma—he would reap what he sowed. But all of Rokugan need not pay the price for his folly. At the very least he could prevent that.

Throwing aside his tetsubo, Kisada reached to his hip and drew the katana his father handed to him on the day he took the reins of the Crab Clan—the very same sword that the first Hida used against the minions of Fu Leng—the Ancestral Sword of the Crab.

"I may have lost my way," Kisada roared, "but with my remaining son at my side I will send you back to the darkness from which you crawled, Dark One!"

Had he looked to his son, Kisada would have seen a man a motionless as a statue. Even so, he could not have heard what the Dark God whispered in Yakamo's mind.

Be still, Little Crab. You do not think I would allow you to use my own gift against me, did you?

The claw on his left arm slowly clicked open and closed. Each snap sent fire up Yakamo's arm, but he could say nothing. He pleaded with his eyes for his father to notice, but Kisada remained completely unaware.

Kisada stood with his weight centered on his left foot and slid his right toward Fu Leng. He raised his ancestral sword so that it hung parallel to his right ear and pointed at his most hated enemy. A classic dueling stance, and one he had not used since his days as a student.

"It is not too late. We will redeem ourselves!"

He lowered his weight onto his right foot and spun toward his opponent. Another classic maneuver—he now held the katana low and came from a strong left stance. The purpose was to throw his opponent off guard.

Fu Leng only stood there, holding the still-sheathed Sword of the Hantei and wearing the emperor's malicious smile. "It
is
too late, little Crab."

Kisada focused his chi in his stomach and launched himself in an acrobatic series of leaps, striking at the enemy with each one.

Though Fu Leng never moved, his power deflected each blow. "It is far too late for you to do anything—except die."

With one fluid motion, the Dark God drew the sword that symbolized the honor of all of Rokugan and thrust it through Hida Kisada.

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"Look at them run!" Kaiu Utsu rarely got to see the tail end of a battle. Being the clan siege master meant being on the front lines, finding a way to punch through the enemy's defenses, and stepping out of the way once a breach was established. Other samurai specialized in exploiting the hard-earned weakness. Utsu and his men were far too valuable to risk in the unpredictable ebb and flow of melee. Their specialties would be needed again the next day.

Today, though, every Crab's duty was to crush the Lion and imperial forces. Today, as night fell, Utsu finally knew what it felt like to
be
the victor!

"It is a curiously appealing sight," said Yakamo no Oni.

"I don't suppose it's one either of us is likely to forget," added Utsu. "This may well be the most important day in the history of the empire!"

"Of that I am certain," replied the oni as it looked toward the heart of Otosan Uchi.

With a sound like thunder in the mountains, a building not two blocks from where they stood exploded. Gouts of flame shot into the air, and the roar of the collapsing structure echoed for miles.

"I wonder what caused that," said Utsu. "The building didn't look
that
unstable."

"Many things are less stable than they seem," said the oni. Utsu's attention was too focused on the ruined structure to see that the creature's grin had turned menacing.

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"Noooooooo!"

Fire flowed through Hida Yakamo's veins as he willed his magically petrified limbs out of their frozen positions. He heard tendons stretch and muscles pop—sounds that reminded him too keenly of the Shadowlands creature to whom he'd given his name. Only in the past few minutes did the young samurai realize how much power he'd given the oni and how deeply he'd steeped his own soul in the power of Fu Leng.

The Ancestral Sword of the Crab clattered to the floor, released from Hida Kisada's hand as he hung helplessly on the hilt of the Dark God's katana.

One step.

"Your days are through, Kisada," Fu Leng said. "You made the same mistake that all humans do—you thought that you could make a difference."

Another step.

"The funny thing is, you can make a difference. And you certainly did, oh Lord of the Crabs." The Dark God laughed.

Another step ... and another.

"What you didn't know was that the only way to accomplish good is to work with your rivals. If you had put aside your differences and worked together, I could never have achieved what I did."

Two more steps, following closer together.

"Instead you did what the rest did—what humans
always
do—you believed that your vision was somehow superior to that of your fellows. You decided that everything would be all right if only people would listen to you. And you acted on that wholly selfish belief."

Step after step after step.

The creature that once was Hantei the 39th twisted the sword in the Great Bear's belly, but Kisada did not make a sound.

"It is too bad that a lesson like this will do you no good. Not in this life anyway." Despite the frailty of his host body, Fu Leng raised the sword, and the Crab daimyo, high over his head. "However, with the karmic debt you have amassed, Kisada-sama, I'm certain you will be back to fight this fight again. Good-bye."

Yakamo lowered his shoulder, willed his feet to keep moving, and plowed headlong into the Dark God. Taken completely unawares, Fu Leng released Kisada. The force of Yakamo's blow flung the Dark God through the air. He tumbled over the Emerald Throne and crashed violently through the rear wall of the emperor's dais.

The young Hida caught his injured father and laid him gently on the floor.

"I am sorry, Father," Yakamo said. He collapsed in absolute pain. Once again, he was held completely immobile. He could see blood flowing down the length of the blade that protruded from Kisada's gut.