Yama had expected his father to send one of his brothers after him once he showed up on holo-projectors in the first trial. For one to let themself into his room and pour a cup of tea while they waited, was something Yama had not expected. Perhaps I should have, he thought with a sigh. It is Danzo after all.
“Nice place,” Danzo said, resting one leg on the other. His shaggy chin-length, milk-white hair almost hid the black eyepatch over his right eye and contrasted the black three piece he wore, sans tie. If Yama looked at him just right, the hair also worked decently well as curtains to hide the extensive swell-sight mutations that pulled his brow and sockets back like an eagle. But Yama knew what his brother had, and he could never unsee it. “Although, the tea could use some improvement,” he added as he set his cup down on his floating knee.
Yama pointed over his shoulder to the door. “Take it up with Facia. Does father know you’re here?”
Danzo shook his head. “Oh, I’m sure he does, but nobody else if I’m at all good at my job, which”—Danzo brought his hand to his chest—”I am.”
“Know anybody here?”
Danzo nodded. “Quite a few. It was Ginevra who told me you were here, actually, before you got your big grey ass on holo-vision. Since I was just a hop over in the far-north, figured I’d stop by to say hello to number four.”
“Ginevra, know what she’s here for?”
Danzo shook his head, but Yama made out the smug smile playing at his lips. “We’re not that good of friends, although I did eat—”
Yama rolled his eyes. “Does father have dealings in this city?”
“Other than not letting Kano and his crew come here?” Danzo shrugged. “No, not that he’s told me. Why?”
“I’m supposed to lose tomorrow to Bolor, apparently, since Batbayar is to marry the princess.”
“If you’re thinking about throwing this match to curry favor with the khan, don’t. Don’t do that to her. That guy is a sleaze-ball that even a brothel rat would look twice at.”
“It wasn’t on my mind,” Yama lied.
Danzo narrowed his gaze at his brother. “Yes, it was. I know you.”
“I want Kano dead more,” Yama said, “that’s why I came, to show the whole universe that honor did not die in Ni.”
Danzo smiled. “Good,” he said, rising toward the door. “I’m off to get a cup of tea from Facia. Mind if I crash in your suite later?”
Yama nodded. “No guests.”
Danzo made puppy eyes that would have been very convincing had Yama not seen him indecently passed out several times. “You’re no fun,” he said before opening the door to reveal Ginevra in casual clothes under her cloak.
“Maeda, figured you’d show up at some point,” Ginevra said. “Mind if I borrow your brother?”
“Only if I can borrow yours.” Danzo poked his head so as to look over Ginevra’s shoulder. “Is Varden around?”
“Just me.”
“Pity,” Danzo said before stepping past Ginevra.
“What’s up?” Yama asked after Ginevra had closed the door.”
“Asha found a cypher, believe it or not, and we need you to move some slabs again.”
Yama arched his brow. “Can you not phase through them?”
“No, I must have phased 300 times today between helping you and Asha and Brianna. Turns out, opening small wormholes is very taxing.”
Still don’t know what exactly is under the tunnel, Yama reasoned, looking Ginevra up and down, but she seems genuine. If she thinks it’s bad, I need to find out what it is and keep it away from Otganbayar.”Thank you for that, by the way,” Yama decided to say as they left the suite.
The duo found Asha and Brianna at the entrance to the first of the hidden rooms, and Yama grabbed the vial that Brianna held out for him. The giant ripped open the metal slabs and stumbled forward upon parting the final one. Asha and Brainna simply moved past him to the stairs while Ginevra offered him a towel to wipe his face—purple, of course—before descending the stairs.
“What are we looking at Okoro?” Ginevra asked at the bottom.
Asha brandished a paintbrush and a small can of paint. “I need to draw some extra glyphs over these ones, a key over the lock if you will. Kikuchi, are you able to lift me?” Yama nodded before effortlessly lifting her above his head. “A little gentler, please,” she said, and Yama adjusted his grip so she stood on his palms. “Get ready,” she said minutes later, hopping down after she finished the last glyph.
Yama stepped forward and pointed Uzumaki in front of him. Behind, Ginvera produced two slender daggers while Brann pulled a green-black vial from her pocket. “I need to have Jochi make me one of those bags,” Brianna said as the rock parted in the shape of a door, the material vanishing into the air. “I have to carry my dex so it doesn’t break one of my vials in my pocket.”
A laminated white tunnel lay beyond the crude door, and at the edge of his vision, Yama saw a set of metal doors and a fork in the tunnel. With the largest weapon of the group, he stepped through first, proceeding with only a single foot. When he was not fried, frozen, or otherwise harmed, the Sword Saint stepped another foot through, and the trio followed behind him cautiously.
“Definitely not on the map,” Brianna muttered. “Any idea what it is?”
“Looks like a lab entrance, or at least something secured,” Asha whispered, crouching past Yama. “We should try to be quiet.”
The tunnel branched into a hallway devoid of anything except the double doors at the center and the blacked-out glass spanning the tunnel at chest height. HOW DO WE GET IN? Yama signed from his painfully crouched position.
LEAVE IT TO ME, Asha signed back before bringing her hands together, palm to palm, and muttered a short incantation. Her skin took on a grainy texture like sand, and her clothes followed suit before falling into a mound no higher than Ginevra’s shoe. Before Yama could ask what had happened, the sand swirled and forced itself bead by bead through the bottom of the door.
DO WE HELP? Yama signed. Ginevra shook her head and Yama decided to trust that Ginevra knew her friend better than he did.
Silence hovered over the trio who dared not move or exhale and chided themselves with every blink and rise and fall of their stomachs. No noise, that’s a good sign, Yama reasoned. No danger yet.
The room could also be soundproofed and she could be dead, Yama thought, hating what conclusions his mind jumped to when presented with a bit of silence. Could this be where Temujin modified his soldiers? If one of them gets ahold of Asha, how will we know? We’d be found out in short order, he reasoned, skin prickling at having to fight whatever was in the labs.
The silence broke as the sand returned and immediately darted down the tunnel. After exchanging glances and shrugs, the rest of the quartet followed after Asha. She transformed halfway down the tunnel, her skin two tints paler.
“What did you see?” Ginevra asked.
Asha gulped, but whether the wet sound was from trying to wet her throat after turning into sand or genuine fear, Yama knew not. “The stone,” she said, like a woman winded. “Altan and some surgeons were using it and more of those glyphs, ones I don’t recognize, to stabilize”—Asha shuddered—”something,” she said before snapping her fingers to open the door in the rock.
“What did this something look like?” Brianna asked lightly as they climbed the stairs, as if the wrong choice of words would set Asha off like a landmine.
Asha spun to face the group, a sheen of sweat on her brow. “It was human.”
“Could you draw it?”
Asha nodded as she picked up the pace, practically lunging up the steps. “I need a drink first.”
The walk to Brianna’s room was silent and the young alchemist immediately retrieved a flask from her fridge. “I swear it’s just liquor,” Brianna said as she poured four drinks.
Asha downed hers in one sip, wincing tighter than a drawstring bag. “I don’t care. Get me a pen and paper and keep it coming.”
Brianna plopped a notebook and a bite-marked pencil in front of Asha. “It was humanoid, but completely drained of blood and moisture,” Asha began as she sketched. “They had muscle like Kikuchi here, and had sharp teeth, rows of them, and three-inch claws on their hands.”
“Scary,” Yama said, having seen and killed several much larger, much deadlier sounding beasts back in Ni.
“That wasn’t the worst part,” Asha said, not looking up from her drawing. “They were all milk white like, like, like”—she rolled her hand—”like they were poured into a human shaped mold.”
Brianna and Ginevra glanced at each other. “Like broadband?” Ginevra asked.
Asha shook her head. “No, glossier than broadband, and with no blue,” she explained. “There were maybe 100 I could see, and they had these red eyes”—Asha filled in two circles on the paper—”that just bore into you.”
“Fleshbending,” Yama said, dropping the air 20 degrees. “They’re making meat puppets.”
“And the stone?” Ginevra asked.
Asha paled to white. “One of the surgeons took a rifle like Schulz used today to punch a hole in one and it just cracked its bones back into place and sewed itself back together.” Yama and Ginevra winced and Brianna—perhaps the only virgin to dealing death—turned green. “I about vomited.”
“Doesn’t sound like anything I saw fighting Temujin.” Yama turned to Ginevra. “Anything your outfit has seen?”
“No. Varden would have mentioned it.”
“A new line of shock troopers, then?” Brianna suggested.
“Not many of them though,” Yama said. “Put them on a field and they’re gonna eat artillery like the rest of us,”
Asha shook her head weakly. “I’d wager they live,” she whispered. “And if you put them in a truck and set them out”—Asha shook her head, shivering—”you of all people should know Kikuchi. You’ve seen what the Nimese samurai can do, what the knights of Atlas can do; imagine if Temujin had that.”
Often it was elite soldiers in thumb thick armor and wielding guns larger than their bodies or alterists who finally broke Temujin’s forces, usually leaving a mountain of corpses in their wake. While Yama had purchased his space in those bloody ranks, the thought brought him no comfort. The land of the Aurcourians had been half on fire a few weeks ago, and Umbramire hadn’t been much better. With a shot to the arm, could the new Tatan offensive challenge the Northmen to the east or break through Umbramire and harass empires of mid space? The latter was more likely—nobody could go toe to frozen toe with the Northmen—but breaking through the south would invite the same challenge from the frozen jarls eventually. “That’s why he’s courting everyone here. It’s not about housing soldiers in the castle, it’s about making them, arming them.”
Brianna wrapped a thick blanket around Asha. “Does it concern anybody else that three contestants are with the Bratva?” she asked. “Grigori, Kiril, and apparently Sigmund’s right hand?”
Ginevra shrugged. “No more than three Atlasians.”
“Me and Anna came separately, only Heidi was sent with gifts,” Yama said. “That’s why they’re gonna have us lose in the next trial.”
Brianna sighed. “Regardless, those three brought a lot of medical supplies, likely including whatever’s being used in those labs. Notice anything of theirs? Supplies, surgeons, anything?”
Asha nodded. “Crates were labeled in far-ie speak and the guy handling the stone was clearly far-ie.”
Yama slapped his hands weakly to his knees. “So, what do we do? We can’t torch the labs.”
“Well”—Asha’s eyes darted to Ginevra—”one of us is going to lose. Gives us free time to investigate.”
Ginevra crossed her arms and glared at Asha through the shadow of her hood. “I’m not throwing the fight.”
“Not asking you to, believe it or not, I’ve been looking for an excuse to sock you over the years,” Asha said, a small smile betraying her words.
“Likewise.” Ginevra stood and downed the rest of her drink. “We’ll hit the other room once I can phase again, and after the first matches, we can reassign duties. I’m not going to let a single one of those ghouls leave here.” Ginevra put a hand on Brianna’s shoulder. “Thank you for the drink,” she said before leaving the room.
I need to tell the khan what his captain is up to under his nose. ”Sounds like a plan, if you need anything lifted, get Orphiel,” Yama said before leaving.
The specter leaned against the wall as Yama exited. “Where are you going?”
Yama rolled his eyes and continued down the hallway. “To tell the khan what is happening. He’s a party-man, not a fighting man, and he ought to know what his captain is up to under his nose.”
The man phased into view further down the hallway as a black hologram. “No. That shit isn’t your problem, you’re here to kill Kano.” He jabbed Yama in the chest, but the finger sunk into Yama’s chest. “How could I forget?”
Our hero makes eye contact with the girl who is leaning forward in her seat and staring unblinkingly. (I wish I listened,) he says before turning back to his work.
“Otganbayar needs to know what is going on in his castle.”
The specter groaned before phasing away, leaving Yama unobstructed in his path to the khan.
Only to stop after a few steps. How do I explain this? Yama wondered. While he was a dutiful eye—even if the khan knew not—he had been somewhere he shouldn’t have. As shaky ideas filled his mind—parts and pieces that couldn’t ever amount to an explanation—Yama knew that even if he could explain his own presence there, he couldn’t explain that of his compatriots if questioned. Compatriots. The word was bitter, but Yama swallowed it nonetheless. Four was a number large enough to bind Yama’s hands and gag him, for now. I will not bother the khan and accuse his captain until I can confirm this, Yama reasoned before heading to his room.
Danzo had returned to Yama’s room—with Maria’s tea, if the small boxes on the counter were anything to go by—and was curled in a chair with a cup balanced on his knee…which had the corresponding foot balanced on his other knee. Danzo did this kind of showing off often, and it never ceased to make Yama roll his eyes. He was their father’s perfect son, the only one who was of samurai blood; was that not enough? Clearly not. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Down, more like,” Yama said as he sank into his chair. “There’s a lab beneath the castle and somebody is using it to fleshbend.”
Two lines formed on Danzo’s brow. “How deep?”
Yama shrugged. “I don’t know, deep. Why?
“On the ride up here, I saw something that looked like trucks in the burnt sector,” Danzo explained. “Since there’s no docks on this level, I figured that’s how they’re getting supplies for the tournament up here.”
“How long are you sticking around? Father might appreciate if we keep tabs on this situation. I can’t monitor this situation while I’m in the ring, but you”—Yama pointed at Danzo—”you can.”
“Lot of ground to cover, but I am dad’s favorite for a reason,” Dazno said. “I’ll see what I can find. You’re going to win against Bolor right? You’re not going to throw it?”
Yama glared at his brother. “I said I wouldn’t. Besides, I have to see this ghoul situation through to the end.”
Danzo grinned. “Good. Quite a few other mercenaries are betting against you, and I’d hate for you leave me in the poor house,” he said before leaving.
A Lord’s time is his most important asset
Do not waste it on trivial matters
The Tenets of Tenshi